For Better or Worse....In Sickness and in Health.....I'll follow you whatever.....

I remember on August 15, 1992, I stood in front of friends and family in my beautiful white wedding gown and vowed to love Jim in sickness and in health....

Now, honestly at that age, I wanted to believe I knew what that meant.  I watched my Dad love my mom durning her three grueling years of cancer.  He never drew weary of loving and caring for her.  I remember them sitting in the recliner together....

Now as an adult, I know they must have sat there cherishing that moment as if it were probably their last.  I just thought it was cute. It was a love I longed for one day.....

Now, here I am sitting in our recliner with the love of my life, wondering why, of all the people in the world, he got picked to have cancer.  We had so many plans to just be spontaneous, like we were before we had kids, and just travel....

Today, we went back to the doctor to get the catheter out...finally...While we were there, I had to know why we haven't gotten the  pathology report. I can't truly breathe until I know we are free and clear.  I knew way in the back of my mind we wouldn't be completely clear, his numbers were too high, but I wanted to believe it......Sure enough, there was "positive margins", foreign numbers I didn't have a clue what they meant, and metastatic carcinoma....what in the world does all that mean.....Well, means we are not done with this war yet.  We have yet another battle to fight.  We go back to the Doctor on Tuesday to let him tell us what our next battle is....

I got mad, I got sad, I got jealous of all the people walking around laughing, planning trips, being on trips, eating out as if nothing was bothering them.  I'm on the computer researching these medical words and what to do next.  My favorite thing to do when I need to just think is to mow...My family loves when I get stressed....means they don't have to mow.....

As the mower is spitting grass out and looking fresh, I thought about Jim, I remembered our wedding day, I remembered all the good times, I remembered how many times a day he makes me laugh. I remembered I made a promise to love this man regardless of what hits us.....As my mower was running and I was lost in the songs I was listening to, my eye caught this beautiful sight....

Jim sitting at our kitchen table as he does a lot....working.....I watched him for a good while....suddenly I didn't feel cheated out of not having the summer of our dreams...I felt an overwhelming sense of love for this fighter...We are in this thing called life together, on good days and on bad days....Waking up everyday with this man is a good day no mater in sickness or in health........

Thank you Cancer.....

Dear Cancer:

I wanted to update you on Jim....Since you have come into our lives attempting to destroy it, we have reconnected with friends we haven't seen in years, we have had people praying for us all over the United States, I heard from several people on fb telling us they were praying, we have had some of the most amazing meals ever, but the best part, we have slowed our pace down and just sit together.

So, I want to thank you for all the above. You can't come into our lives and destroy it.....You can make us take a new route, which we will have to, but you can't untie a knot that is secured by Jesus Christ.

Letting go of today...

I've cooked, cleaned, shopped, washed clothes, in anticipation of what tomorrow will bring.  Today, I'm finding myself following him everywhere he goes.  When I don't see him, I search until I find him.  I sit and watch him when he is outside working on the pool....He loves working on that thing...Probably therapy for him and everything happening in the next week.  

June 28 will forever change my life.  The one thing I hate most....cancer has come uninvited once again.  It came in 1982 and took the very thing I needed most in my life (at the time)...my Mom....I don't do life without her.....I watched that uninvited guest rob her of everything she held dear...her life....And now, it has come in my life again to take the very thing I need most in my life.....My love.....I don't do life without him.....I find the bitterness really creeping in my life today....We should be on vacation, running around a beach, eating way too much, laughing with our boys, seeing sights we've never seen before....Instead I smell healing broth boiling in my kitchen, while I watch my dryer spin round and round with the sheets that will be nice and clean for him to sleep tonite.......Because tomorrow is the first day of our new life....