Moving On?

    I am so very grateful this morning. My kitty is here beside me, in our "spot" as I type. There is some restored order to my home again and we are coming to the end of the school year. No more schedules for a while and time to catch up.  The sun is shining, the house is still cool and I have a great cup of coffee beside me! I am so grateful. I am forgiven for my failures, carried forward to the future and given just enough courage to face the next moment.
    This is all so true and yet...there is so much more swirling along underneath. My daughter is home, yes, and cancer free, yes, but she is so fragile and still so ill. It seems that one step is forward and 3 steps are back. Having to go to the cancer centre is so hard. She has a cancer card. She is so very young. I am young, compared to the majority of people who are there and most of them are accompanying their elderly parent or their spouse. Yesterday, we were told that she had a virus that only time will get rid of and that she must have a liver biopsy as her numbers are funny. They think it's medication that is the culprit, but need to be sure. Sure? More pain, more invasive procedures? I know, trust the Dr. I do. She's a great doctor, but it is so discouraging to be here and to be aware that more pain is coming for my girl.
    She is discouraged too. We are both talking much about "transplant recovery" and giving herself the time and grace to get better but it seems that she is constantly needing to recover from something else first. I am so proud of her. She is able to voice her discouragement and yet, keeps putting one foot in front of the other. She is fighting her eating disorder. She is beautiful and gifted and I thank God for such a blessing as to get to be her mom. And...she is suffering. It hurts. It seems endless and we are called to keep moving on.
    People are precious to me and I love them so much and I want to hide for a while. I haven't got any more words to give, more explaining to do, no more space in my head. I am so selfish! These loving, kind souls have been amazing and giving and such faithful friends. I want to move on with them but I feel stuck and hollow. I am deeply ashamed when I read the morning news and see all the suffering around the world as I sit in my comfortable home. I know better. I want to give and be content with my lot and to want to walk with God more than I want my pain to be taken away. I want to move on and I'm tired. Ever get tired of living in your own head?
    This too shall pass!  One of the best things about getting older is the calm knowledge that moments do pass, life goes on and there will be a tomorrow. I remember feeling so trapped and the panic of feeling like this particular moment will last forever! So I know that I am moving on and I guess I am wondering what life is to look like now? I think the dilemma in my soul is that I feel an unspoken expectation (from others, from myself?) to get back to normal and  I also feel that the whole world has moved on in one direction while I am moving away in the other direction. I feel lost, that's what it is. I guess my question is, moving on to what? To where? And how do you do that with so many other relationships seemingly anchoring you to move with them in the other direction? Oh, boy.
Just thinking.

Beginning, Middle and Ending

It’s funny how life is a constant series of stories and all are at different spots and all are happening simultaneously in life. I have been thinking about this because I feel like I can’t keep up! Not only that, but yesterday was my first day back at our home church and although it was a “coming home”, in every sense of the words, it was tough too because many that I met assumed we are at the end of the battle for my daughter’s life and in reality, we are smack in the middle. Coming home has been a great beginning and yet, my oldest daughter moved out yesterday with her husband to their new home and it was a tough ending.

    Made a little tougher by my teenage son, telling me it was no big deal that she was leaving, as she has been married for  awhile and left before. So, we had to have a chat about respecting Mom’s feelings and perspective and not trying to argue when something that is important to me is going on. The truth is, she was leaving home for good. The wedding is over, her sister and I are home and it is time for her to begin her new life with her husband. Yesterday was an ending I was not prepared for in some ways, but can you ever be? I feel shattered that the baby I was so thrilled to have placed in my arms, is all grown up and on her way. I am so, so proud of her and rejoicing that she has left home with our blessing and has a good man to build a life with. I think I need a good cry.

    Smack in the middle of that ending, was a middle – a continuation of life with my son. Discussing the importance of respect and re-establishing the role that I as Mom, have in this home after being away for 3 months. I think that although my family is glad to have me home, they are remembering that a 2 parent family feels different and that Mom has a “thing” about a clean house and order in the home. Along with that is my daughter’s pain. Oh, how I wish I could snap my fingers and take it away. We head back to the cancer clinic to ask for help with some more issues she is having. We are totally in the middle of transplant recovery, not near the end yet. As always, too, I am in the middle of living in my head, processing and asking God for mercy and help. Sometimes I feel like I have been talking for hours, only to hear my voice come out croaky because I have been thinking and not actually speaking.

    I am only on Day 5 of being at home. This has been a very tough beginning and I seriously hope it gets better. My daughter and I have talked about a new start in our own relationship. Needless to say, I have screwed up already, but it doesn’t negate the newness of being at home again. My husband and I are aiming for a new beginning, but in reality we are stuck somewhere in the middle of learning to love each other well and stick together through the “stuff” being thrown at us. God has been so faithful to help my husband forgive me, love me and sometimes even enjoy me!!

    As a dear friend said to me, my house is exactly like someone picked it up, gave it a good shake and put it down. So true! My family did so well to keep going while I was away, but oh boy, my house is not in order. I am repeating to myself, over and over, that it can be sorted, it’s okay,  it’s not the end of the world, but every time I have opened a drawer, a cupboard or a closet, I get a shock. So far, I have managed to stay only on the main floor but tomorrow I must brace for the basement and the chaotic laundry room. They sure did their best and wow, is it in need of a little declutter!  One step at a time. The night we got home, my daughter was in distress because she needed a new beginning in her room after coming home again. We moved all her furniture and prayed over her room. Far from being a safe place for her, it was full of memories of pain and depression and suffering. I think it has helped her and it helped me to slow down and be able to reorganize one small area at a time, a few cupboards here and there and stop to breathe.

    I am realizing that living in trauma for the last 7 months, has been a lot harder than I thought.  Being at home, has been a constant reminder of where I have been and that the journey has been harder than I imagined.  I am having trouble sleeping again and for me, that is a sure sign that the deeps are being stirred. I am aware of pain in my soul that I had to put away for the time that my daughter was so critical, and is now making itself known again. I need my friends, I need my husband and most of all, I need to sit with Jesus and let Him heal me. Little by little, some order is being restored, both in my home and in my heart. I am living by these words that I have had on my fridge door for awhile, but forgot about.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast BECAUSE he trusts in You”.  Isaiah 26:3

Thank goodness that though all these beginnings, middle and endings are going on in all our lives, we are not the Author of our stories and He knows exactly where we are, and where we are going. Phew!

Just thinking

Useless Shame

    Over the last few days I have been reevaluating my life and what it might look like when I go home, after being away for 3 months.  I have been looking after my sweet daughter as she has battled leukemia and worked her way through a bone marrow transplant. (Today we got the incredible news that her latest biopsy shows no signs of leukemia - it is gone! Thank you, Lord!)  Going home is yet another change for all of us, and we are feeling some anxiety and trying to make some plans.
    As I have been considering this, I am aware of a deep disquiet in my soul. A mocking voice that is reminding me of what a failure my life is. A deep rooted belief that by not following my father's plans for me to "be something", that my life is useless and wasted and above all, something to be ashamed of.  As I write this, I need to be clear. My children are the most extravagant blessings I have ever been blessed with. All of my life, I wanted to be a wife and a mommy. What I am referring to, is the shame that was heaped on me for having that desire and expressing it in the home I grew up in. Later on, when I followed my heart's longings and began our family, there was deep disgust and disappointment from my parents. Never towards the kids, whom they loved from the moment they were born, but for me - from the moment I was pregnant. I look at pregnant women who enjoy the journey with envy because for me, it was a mix of joy overlaid with a thick layer of shame. Isn't it so often the way? You and the new life you build is full of joy, but your past and home of origin bring a divided heart and turmoil.
    No more! I have loved being "mommy" to my precious kids. I will always be grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me an incredible husband who loves me and wanted to have a family with me. He has worked so hard to let me be able to stay home and raise our kids and do what I feel I was most gifted to do - be a mom.  With some adult children and some on the cusp of adulthood, I can look back and smile in great joy and gratefulness for the years I have had at home with my kids. Even as I look and smile, I am aware of a grey thread of false shame at my wasted life. What a stupid lie! My life has not been wasted, nor will I allow that regret to hang over my head any longer. Baloney! I didn't do what my father demanded and I thank God for that! It would have destroyed me, but for a loving God who reached into my life and gave me what my heart longed for most. I am so, so blessed.
    I was thinking about the few months before this journey through leukemia began and I can see how that belief was rising to the surface and poisoning my daily life. I lost interest in cooking for my family - it seemed useless and I was such a loser. Lies, all lies. I go home with a restored sense of joy, of longing to make our home a special oasis in a tough world. To feed my family and be proud of nourishing them well. To laugh and share at a dinner table and to let my loved ones know that they matter to me and that I believe in them and what God has created is GOOD!
 So today, I say to shame, "You are useless and not only that, you are utterly false. Get out of my life. I refuse to listen to you and let you drain the colour out of my days. I choose joy." My kids aren't a burden, they are gifts. Homemaking is a good passion and I am most blessed. Go God!!! God bless the husband you chose for me. We have so much to look forward to together. I love him so.
Just thinking.

The Overflow of Horror

    I just finished trying to have a nap and I gave up because I feel like my mind and heart are overflowing with horror. The horrors of the last 7 months are catching up to me and I feel like I am now over capacity. The most sickening part of this, is that it is all the awful things that my child has suffered and not me myself. She has had to endure and feel every experience, while I have merely watched and tried to offer what comfort I could. I feel ashamed that I cannot cope better and ashamed that I am so overwhelmed at what she has gone through and I have not had to experience it in my own body.

    I think I need a list of horror. Just to catalogue it and maybe be able to give it up at last. So....

The horror of watching a Bone Marrow Biopsy on my child who is so sick that she can't be given any pain medication. Of watching her face in agony, her clinging to my hands and sobbing in pain. Her poor little face so pinched, with a black eye and the whites of her eyes all bloodshot from the force of her vomiting blood the night before.  Her leukemia is acute and rare.

    Watching the ICU team come rushing in the hospital room with their backpacks on, placing a mask on my girl who is struggling for oxygen and crying that she can't breathe as a kind nurse stands with her arm wrapped around me for support. Of wandering the hallways, unable to find the doorway they showed me as they rushed her in, telling me I would be able to see her in 3 hours. Wandering the hallways and finally someone showing me where to go. Having to use a phone to ask if I could enter the ICU to see her.

    Walking in to the room and seeing her intubated, unconscious with all the monitors you see and hear on a tv show actually monitoring my daughter. At the time I was upheld, now that I am remembering, I want to vomit. A few hours later, trying to prepare my husband and other kids as to what they had to do to see her - washing a specific way, gowns, gloves. They had flown in that night as the doctor had told us she had a 50/50 chance to make it.  Stroking her hair and unable to touch her skin as she was cytotoxic and the chemicals coming out of her skin were unsafe for us.

    The horror of her passing out on the toilet in my arms, her face grey and the nurses rushing in to help us. The loss of dignity for her and her painful weakness and violent vomiting as we got her to her bed. A few weeks later, the horror of clumps of hair coming out and taking her to get her head shaved. Watching her despair as the depths of this journey began to sink in and the ugly feeling of a bald head.

More agony as she faced another bone marrow biopsy, this time coupled with a spinal tap that left her with a blinding headache for days afterward. That headache was so bad that she had to lay with her head in my lap for the short airplane flight home.

    More horror as the leukemia showed up again and having to watch her be told that she must undergo a much harsher round of chemotherapy to hopefully put her into remission. Weeks of being so ill that she literally begged to die. A Christmas away from others, watching her suffer. The horror of counting out pills day after day, feeling like a cruel taskmaster as I had to help her take them. Forcing her back to the doctor for more appointments, asking the necessary questions that would bring her more suffering.

Going to a horrible gynecologist who was cruel in his sheer indifference and attitude when telling her she is rendered infertile because of her chemotherapy and then the indignity and pain of an ultrasound that we weren't prepared for. She cried all the way down the highway to the centre for the bone marrow biopsy. Such a callous, cruel situation and also, situated in a fertility clinic. Really? Horror.

    More chemotherapy, this time even stronger as they had to wipe out her own bone marrow (which was producing the leukemic blasts) to be replaced with her brother's stem cells. Radiation too, that made her more sick and I was there for it all, placing her on the table, helping the nurses all I could, making her sicker. This time the chemo left her with mucositis, open sores all the way from her mouth thru her intestines to her bottom.  Seeing her vomit up a feeding tube and the horror of not seeing what it was at first. Having to clean her when her bowels made a mess, having to help her out of bed and making her walk around the unit because she needed to move to gain strength. Holding her up and bodily carrying her to her bed when she passed out. Seeing her unconscious and wondering if she would look like that if she died. Horrible thoughts.

    Bringing her home, looking like a ghost and worrying for fear something would happen and I couldn't help her like the nurses. Facing her tears when she returned from a gastrointestinal scope that they didn't give her enough sedation for and she was in agony, feeling where they had biopsied her stomach and colon. Having to give her big doses of prednisone to keep her body from attacking itself and watching her suffer all the horrible side effects.

    And now this. This, being a call out of the blue from the clinic. Telling us that she would need a breast ultrasound as they had been watching a lump that needed checking. Really? Waiting for the next call, to tell us when the appt would be, agonizing over the unknown. Finally, the ultrasound. Now we're done, right? Nope, we need to biopsy this lump, we are concerned. Not to worry, breast cancer is extremely rare for your age. Little do they know, so is her kind of leukemia.  Before this breast biopsy, the horror of another bone marrow biopsy. Watching them drill into my child's hip bone, suck out bone marrow with some force and take a piece of the bone also. Tears pouring down her face, her whispers of a fear of being thought wimpy. Oh my sweet girl, never that. You are so precious. I tell her that, but still I feel so much guilt for feeling so overwhelmed with horror and I am not the one lying there in such drastic pain.

    This morning we got a call. They had time right away, can you come and get the breast biopsy done? I feel so cruel, saying yes and then I got her up. I had to tell her, to get her ready, and drive her to the clinic. Usually we walk, but because of her bone marrow biopsy, the pain was too much. They were so kind, but it was a horror just the same. To escort my beautiful, shining bald daughter in to a small room to have her breast pierced and six samples snipped out from deep inside. She is home now and sleeping, but very shaken up and in pain. Feeling violated and shedding tears. We must wait a week.

   Horror. I can't think of any other word. My soul feels simply overwhelmed, and it's not me, it's all happened to her. God have mercy.

Just thinking.

The Comfort of a Cat

    I have been away from home for 3 months. I have seen a fair amount of my family as I am only 3 hours south of my home. Why am I away from home, you ask? One of my daughters has acute myeloid leukemia and has had to have a bone marrow transplant (also known as stem cell transplant). The centre that this is done in, is a city 3 hours south of my home. Our family members have been very faithful to come and visit as often as they can. But...
    I miss my cat. She is 16 years old now, but still in great health and full of bounce. Currently, my family tells me, she is driving them nuts because she howls alot. She is looking for me. We are buddies. We have been together through some rough times in my life and her companionship has been a God-send. Plus, she's as crazy as I am.
    Growing up, we had a cat, Scamper. She was a year older than I was and a very typical, cranky cat. The fact is though, that she was always there. The best thing about Scamper was that she had a great purr - when she felt like purring. I remember going to find her after bad days at school. She was either on my mom's side of the bed, curled up in a ball or down in the basement, snuggled up on some foam mattresses that were on a shelf, ready for the next camping trip. I would find her, pet her and as she started to purr, I would lay my face on her flank and listen (until she got annoyed and bit me). The resonance of that continual sound was comfort. I figured that the world must not be coming to an end if she was still relaxed and purring with contentment. It brings tears to me even now, to remember the hurt in my heart and the sweetness of her purring.
    Since Scamper was such a crank and very much my mom's cat, I wanted one of my own. Major drawback was that I am wickedly allergic to all animals and cats have a lot of fur. Not to be dissuaded, I waited until the time was right. We had  small children and I felt ready to take on a kitten. I have since decided that 6 years of sleep deprivation were fueling my reasoning. I had been describing to my husband the exact kitten I wanted. A little gray tabby with a white bib and 4 white paws and it needed to be a female. One evening when we needed to get out of the house and go for a car ride -  children strapped in car seats and listening to Jungle Jam could be a bit of heaven back then - we decided to go to the spca. It was on the other end of town which was a major bonus! I had taken all the necessary allergy meds and we headed off!
    I remember looking into a crate and seeing her. She was sitting in the back in the litterbox, but she had a white bib and teeny little white paws. My hubby reached in to get her and she hissed at him, so he drew back. I laughed and said, "Look at the size of it! Just pick it up!", so he did. He handed her to me and I pointed out all the ways she looked like what I wanted. Someday. I was honestly convinced we were just window shopping for another time. I remember the kids were just entranced at how teeny she was and so sweet. My husband walked up to a worker and asked, "What do we have to do to take this kitten home?". I don't think there have been many times that I was so surprised and genuinely excited like that. With that, Cleo became my buddy.
    Thankfully, Cleo is very sweet natured (for a cat - she can still hold her own) and I think she believes she is part dog. She will come when called and stays wherever I am in the house. It used to creep me out when I was in the basement doing laundry and felt like I was being watched, only to look up and see the cat hanging out on a pile of clothes. I have a favourite chair at home that is where I sit in the mornings to read and have that all important first cup of coffee. Cleo's chair is right beside mine and often she will rest her paw on my leg as we are sitting, just so I know she's there. Comfort.
    The very best thing about my Cleo is her purr. God knew I would be helped by a purring cat and man, can she rumble. Her purr is constant and loud and it doesn't take much to get the motor going. During some of the very worst storms in my life, that cat will jump up, snuggle in and get the motor going. It can be God's very own love message to me, that all is well and He is on the throne. I know that my time with her is limited. She is after all, 16! Until the day we have to say goodbye, my Cleo will be a comfort and the memory of her will always be a reminder that my loving Heavenly Father is still in full control and one day, all the wrongs will be righted. Until then, we carry on. Thank you Lord, for my cat.
Just thinking!

    I am amazed at how long I have wanted to start a blog and how hard it has been to get going. I have written in journals for as long as I can remember and truth be told, I am a journal addict. I could buy fresh journals everyday and just hoard them. I love all different kinds and the way they feel exciting, all empty and fresh. No mistakes. Ah...yes. That is the Achille's Heel in all this. Perfectionism. It kills so much joy and passion. Being afraid to even start because it is never good enough. Or comes out like I want it to. Or, I fail by not writing EVERY DAY.
    Seriously. Get over it. As I say to my kids, "if a friend was telling you this story, what would you say?". I use this to help them not dismiss their own hearts and downplay their pain. Anyway, I would tell my friend, "Push thru. Who cares whether you do it perfectly? Just do it! Enjoy and don't let your joy be stolen like that". Okay then....here we go! (that wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be!)
Just thinking!