april 19th: the act of forgetting and the art of remembering

it was april 19th, one year ago today, when i sat beneath a giant tree in my friend's front yard and heard "jody, i'm sorry, but the tumor is malignant."  

was that really only a year ago? it seems just yesterday and yet, in a strange way, it also seems somehow a lifetime ago. 
i won't quickly forget that sunny april day. 
those blue skies. 
that giant oak. 
the feel of the phone awkward on my ear. 
the tears hot on my cheeks.  
the breath leaving my body hard and the friends sitting close by, holding my hand tight.  

that day marked me. seared something deep within. it changed a lot.

but now a year later, after surgery and medicine and too many doctor appointments to count, life has gone on. i have plenty of days where i wake and don't even think about the ugly C word. somedays i make it all the way to dinner without giving it a thought. sure, when i pop that tiny white pill in my mouth each evening, i am quickly reminded. but we've moved away from the gut wrenching fear of last spring, from the all consuming cancer and what ifs.

there are absolutely still things i worry about. my friend, beverly (also diagnosed), and i text back and forth at times about the "what ifs" and the worries.  we probably shouldn't do that.  as grown women, we know better...but we have found a little bit of shared comfort in each other's affirming words, "yeah, i think about that too..." we say to each other.  even a good prognosis has its share of concerns and anxieties.  it just does.

this year may have been physically altering for me, but even more so, it has been emotionally, mentally and spiritually altering.  it was a year which taught me the importance of clinging to truth...not just positive thoughts and good wishes, but truth.  in situations like this, boy is the difference crystal clear.   and how thankful i was throughout this journey to know i had a God who was completely in charge...absolutely in control.

just last week our 12 year old, sarah, had surgery -- tonsils and adenoids removed. and as we were driving to her surgery, she was sharing some of her fears about the day ahead.  at age 12 she verbalized the fact that trusting God was in control meant knowing He could even choose to take her life at any time. wow. where do you go with that conversation on an early monday morning in rush hour traffic? 

we had no option but to dig in and address it — "yes, that's exactly what it means. God is in control of each and every breath. He knows the number of hairs on our head and the number of days in our life."  i get why that can be a little scary. but let's talk about the alternative: 
He doesn't know?
no one is in charge?  
life just happens?  
everything is random? 
there is no plan? 
we have no purpose?  
i don't know about you, but to me, that seems infinitely worse.

i've written a lot this year. more than ever before. the stuff just keeps coming, but i'm not surprised.  a year ago, early in the days of first diagnosis, one morning in my devotions, i stumbled across a verse from the psalms: "i will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done." ~ psalm 118:17

i'm not sure i had ever seen that verse before. but on that morning, it felt like a special message from God.  this verse sort of became my banner.  my battle cry. it became my lifeline.  i clung to it often.  repeated it to myself frequently and relied on it heavily. my oldest daughter, emily, painted that verse for me on mother's day last year, a week before my surgery.  it rested on the armoire in my bedroom and in those days of recovery where i had to lie still and behave myself, i kept my eyes fixed on that verse. soon after, i began writing more than ever before. post after post came pouring out.  part of my healing-soul.  part of my proclaiming-God.

perhaps some of you are tired of hearing from me.  "oh, it's her again. for heaven's sake, doesn't she have five children to feed or something to clean?"  but my dark dance with cancer somehow ripped wide open in me the need for words and a desire to proclaim what God has done... is doing... and will do.  honestly, i think one of the things i am most frightened by is the potential to stop talking and writing and then to forget.  because we are like that.  we are forgetters.  like the israelites in the desert cursing God, stiff-necked and scrambling for their manna, they forgot this God of their exile was the very same God of their exodus. they forgot this was the God who had parted waters and defeated pharaoh and lit the night sky with a pillar of fire -- this was the God of their rescue.  and just like them, we, too, forget what God has already done.  though there are parts about the cancer i'd like to put behind me, i don't ever want to completely forget.  i don't want to forget God's great rescue in my life. i want to move on from my cancer, but not forget what it gave me.  i want to move away from the fear, but hold tight to the lessons i learned.  i want to stay soft to the sweetness of His presence. 

when we were going through that valley, our family began to treat life dearer, closer, kinder. my kids stopped bickering for awhile. i'd really like that to continue. (especially the kid thing). i don't want to go back to that place where we take things for granted or treat each other as if we'll always be here.  but it's hard.  life returns and so does the nonchalance of hurried living. i snap at my husband and snip at my children and race through the grocery store. i grumble over grass stains and get huffy when i have too much to do. forgetting that even grass stains are a gift. and i find myself wading knee deep, again, in the ugly ungratefulness of a woman stretched thin. sometimes it seems i am almost drowning in my failure to remember.

but God remains faithful and patient with me.  and often, just on the brink of blurry living, i am reminded again of God's goodness when He gently tilts my head and turns my eyes in the direction of blessing.

the april blue sky.
a giant oak tree.
hot tears.
soft touches.
kind words.

the glimpses of loving. the gift of learning. the art of seeing. the blessing of remembering. the beauty of living.  

and a year full of healing.

april 19th.

my blessings

life goes on

after a spring and summer’s start full with breast cancer, it seems strange to find myself staring at august.  a normal august.  from april to june i was living and breathing and dreaming cancer.  it consumed most thoughts, most days, and most of me.  everything felt connected to it.  everything colored by it.   impossible almost,  to loosen myself from its fierce fist.  from diagnosis to surgery to recovery to results, it was what shaped my days and sharp-needled my nights. 

but here i am stepping into august.  here we are at the end of my recovery and at the end of our summer and things have calmed.  life seems to have quieted.  of course i write that and chuckle...quiet jody? really?  well...maybe not exactly quiet, but ordinary.  i find myself making grocery lists and dinner dates and longterm plans.  and it all seems very everyday, very average. which is good.  i can tell you, after the past few months, boring sounds wonderful.  it is wonderful to worry about scheduling the carpets to be cleaned and the house to be painted.  it is wonderful to deliberate over spaghetti or pesto for dinner. it is pure wonderful to fall asleep thinking about school uniform orders and new backpacks for the children.  it was only a couple of months ago when i was falling asleep under the sweat-heavy blanket of fear.   only weeks ago when i would wake in the morning wild with wondering. 

but there is a strangeness when something all consuming is no longer, when it silently slips out the back door and is gone.  don’t get me wrong, i am glad it is gone.  i am thrilled. tickled. delighted. ecstatic.  but it feels a little odd.  all of a sudden i am just jody again.  i am mother and wife and sister and friend once more.  i get up early and pour milk into cereal bowls and spread  peanut butter on bagels and apply bandaids and kisses to scrapes.  i  sort out laundry and sibling arguments and the recycling.   i am back to the mother who forgets to get gas and fails to pick up the dry cleaning and who is always low on milk and eggs and bread.  and i am back to seeing this same woman - slightly altered - in the mirror and wondering what to do with her now.  and this question rattles around inside me, what else?  what else can i do?  what else can be done?  

i mean i take this tiny white pill every morning with my orange juice and they tell me that is it - just one tiny, round pill.  nothing else left to do.  of course, i can eat all organic and exercise religiously and take expensive vitamins and get my blood drawn every three months...but that’s it? that’s all?  somehow it doesn’t seem nearly enough for something so large as a 1.9 cm tumor...for something so big as black cancer.  i am thrilled to forego chemo, but there is a part of me still wanting to battle hard.  i am a little unsure of this normalcy and nothingness.   i don’t quite trust it. honestly, i am, in a strange way, afraid to rest.   and so on this ordinary almost august day i am figuring out how to let go of the past few months.  i am figuring out how to get it up on the shelf and off of our everyday shoulders.

we are at the beach this week and it is pure, simple summer.  i sat at the ocean’s edge yesterday with the littlest one.  we dug holes and built castles and drank in the great ocean beauty.  pure delight for us both.  there was a couple nearby who kept looking our way.  i could tell they were watching.  and i thought to myself, “they have no idea.”  they watched my family of seven play wild in water and sand and couldn’t possibly imagine the horror we felt only months ago.  because this is how life works.  we pass people every day who are deep in some battle or just steps out of struggle, and we don’t know it.  it doesn’t look like it.  we don’t look like a family who felt cut off at the knees only in april. at least from outward appearances, life has gone on.

just a couple of weeks ago, i met with my surgeon for one more appointment.  before leaving his office, i looked him full in the face and said, “dr. barber,  do i have breast cancer anymore?”  i know the tumor is gone - the breasts too, for that matter - and so where does that leave me? i couldn’t help but wonder.  i told him my name was still in the church bulletin on a prayer list for those in medical crisis.  i was thinking perhaps i needed to call someone and tell them to remove me from it.  dr. barber suggested i keep my name on the list.  he said, “after all, you’re a mother of five, you could probably use some of that extra prayer, regardless.”  and he’s right.  i can.  but still i want to know what to call it.  i know when i hit five years cancer free i can call myself in remission - i can call myself a survivor, but what about now? what will i call this strange place of in between?

and so this early, summer morning with the ocean breeze soft and the family all still sleeping hard, i am back to the place i had never really left.  the place even before cancer - the listening place.  the place of wanting to hear.  same words which God whispers to this needy woman always.  whether cancer-weary or just plain woman-weary, He whispers.  “be still.” whether healthy and whole or broken and bent.  be still.  life changes always.  but He doesn’t ever.  be still.  

“be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, 

I will be exalted on the earth.”  ~ psalm 46: 10