Happy 1st Birthday

November 2011- 3 weeks after transplant

   It’s Mike’s one year birthday.  One year ago today he had his stem cell transplant and life began anew for him (and I guess me and the kids too).  Out with the old, in with the new.  Clean blood, clean stem cells and life begins – again.  Fresh.   In some ways, it seems like a lifetime ago.  I went back to our caring bridge site and read some of the journal entries from this time last year.  Wow.  Was that really us?   I can’t help but get choked up as I read some of the entries.  Between all those lines and all those words was a family holding on.  Living life, day by day, in the moment, and trying to make some sense out of it.  Well, that’s probably not exactly true.  I don’t think we ever tried to make sense of what we were going through. It just was what it was.  It was cancer.  It was hospitals and drugs and lots of doctors visits.  It was tears and long tiring days and uncertainty.  But even with all that, it was more.  It was days filled with unbelievable hope and faith I’ve never known before.  It was a chance to see other people in a whole new light.  People who loved on us with all their might.  People who poured into my kids when Mike and I didn’t have the energy to do so.  Family, friends, a school and a church, who filled in the gap.  More than what I saw in others was what I saw in God.  That intimate communion with Him.  A feeling that your soul is open wide, like a big gaping, raw wound – and then, then HE pours into the wound His grace, His peace and this most amazing love and it’s as if you can literally FEEL Him, even see Him.  That’s what it was.  It wasn’t about cancer.  It was all about knowing Him to the depth of my soul.  Cancer = bad.  Walking through it with God = priceless.

May 2012 - Garden of Hope

April 2012

   So here we are one year later, one year older, one year wiser (at least I hope so!).  They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  I’ve never figured out who “they” are but I believe “they” are probably correct about this.  Mike, Abbie, Michael and I are stronger than we were before the big “C”.  We don’t pretend to have figured everything out but we do know that life is what we make it.  We can use our trials for good, hopefully helping others through theirs or we can wallow in them and feel sorry for ourselves.  It’s a choice.  Because of the type cancer Mike has, we are fully aware that one day we may be walking this road again, but no matter, God is in control.  It may take us by surprise but it won’t Him.  So we keep on, fighting the good fight and choosing to be a witness to what we believe in --- A good, loving, caring God, who will see us through whatever comes our way.  So for now, a big Happy One Year Old birthday wish to my healthy, happy husband – a true warrior.