The Storm

I woke up this Easter Morning, exhausted.

To the bone, to the very depths of my soul, tired.

A tired I'm not sure I've ever felt before.

I don't know if it is physical or perhaps it is a
combination of 13 months of emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical exhaustion which penetrates deeply today.

I have been drained over and over on this journey
we call cancer.  

And I have had to reach deeply inside to pull
myself up to keep going over and over and over.

Some days?  It is ALMOST more than I can do.

Cancer is not just a physical ailment that knocks
you down.

It intertwines with every single thing you do.
Every breath you take.
Every waking thought and every moment of your day.

Even when, and especially when, you are living
and loving and trying to forget.

It hangs on, peering quietly over your shoulder.

Breathing quietly down your neck.

Whispering...."I am here, waiting patiently."

Yet, to succeed and to survive, you have to
keep doing what we have been doing...

...putting one foot in front of the other 
and marching forward.

All the while the storm pushes around you,
and through you and consumes you and takes
your breath away.

I told Kyle the thing I envy the VERY MOST
about "normal people" (family, friends, acquaintances)
is their ability to walk away from us and 
simply forget.

It's not their life and so they don't have the
burden of remembering for large chucks of time.

I don't hold that against them...it is as it should be
for them.  The forgetting.

But for us?  The remembering is ALWAYS there.

In every cough, and every sick moment, and 
trip to the doctor, and every ache, and twinge
and new symptom.

The storms rages on for us.

Sometimes quietly, a few drops on a cloudy day.

Sometimes fiercely, listening to my husband
hover over a toilet bowl, it rages.

Today we will prepare a dinner for family.

We will decorate a long table in the backyard
and sit and eat and remember and make new memories.

We will eat and laugh and love.

We will simply be, pushing the storm to the back round
of our minds for a moment or two.

I am thankful for moments of reprieve, even in 
my exhaustion.

I am thankful for love.

I am thankful for my family.

I am thankful for a husband who keeps pushing
onward and loving me and encouraging me, during this,
the hardest season of my life.

I am thankful for children who hug and clean
and help and are simply amazing.

I am thankful for family and friends that have
kept us anchored in this storm, for those that
have not run, for those that have stepped more
closely into our circle of life.

I am grateful for peace in the goodness of 
people.  And the truthfulness of human love.
I am glad that there is love in times of great
sorrow.

Grace shared this beautiful quote which I will
end with today...


“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through,
 how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is 
really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, 
you won’t be the same person who walked in. 
That’s what this storm’s all about.” 

― Haruki Murakami



One thing is certain, none of us are the same 
person we were when this started 13 months ago...

I guess that's what The Storm IS all about.

Happy Easter all.

Remember, it's all about love...and whether you
find that in God, a resurrected Christ, family,
friends, nature, a beautiful sunset or surrounded
by the ones YOU adore?

It's STILL all about love.

Here's to making it through storms and making
memories with those we love.

And that's what I've got for today.