Wedding day

The bobby pins hit the ceramic of the sink in a torrent, a whole box of them spilled from the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet. I sigh. It's been such a long morning...now this. Bend down, pick up the box, pick up the first copper brown pin. I bought these to match my hair on my wedding day. They matched my hair back then. I hold one up to my post-cancer crown, now almost black no matter how hard I look for my familiar red and gold highlights. In a moment, holding that bobby pin up to my hair, everything crystallizes and a flood of memories washes over me.

I remember not washing my hair for two weeks before my wedding. I wanted it to be nice and curly, and the only way to do that was to let it be. The morning dawned humid with a thick cover of gray rain clouds. Our September day looking questionable. I rinsed my hair that morning in patchouli and vanilla water, my signature hippie cover-up for two-weeks-unwashed-hair. It looked great in the mirror, bouncy and sassy and beautiful. My hair has always been one of those features I can focus on when I look at myself and still think I am pretty. Later that day, I pinned up my hair loose around my face, and stuck baby's breath in the pins. Simple, no veil, no hair stylist, just my hands and those copper bobby pins.

That night I remember the tinny sound as each pin hit the sink, dropped from my hands as I stood fresh from the shower, shaking rice out of my hair. I drew it out, the time in the steamy bathroom, because you were out there waiting and I was shaking in my boots. As much as I loved you, as much as I truly desired to spend the rest of my life with you in that longing, aching way that cannot be squelched, I was afraid to sleep with you. Every morning thereafter for almost two months, I cried in our bed and you held me in your arms and were quiet with the unknowing and the wanting to fix me. It wasn't commitment - I signed a 30 year mortgage at 21 without blinking an eye. It wasn't you - you with the handsome Roman nose and the shock of thick curly brown hair and the dancing eyes. Every dream coming true, and all I could do was cry.

I come back to myself, here at the sink in 2014. This September is our 12th wedding anniversary. It seems like such a very long time ago, when I try to remember past babies and chaos and the rollercoaster of our life since. I hold the copper pin, running my thumb over the sharp grooves. Tears fill my eyes and I think, I've dropped it, just like the box of pins. I've dropped it - the memories, the beauty of this marriage - and now it is scattered and broken and I just want to salvage one little piece for my dreams if loneliness is my future. I walk out of the bathroom and tuck that bobby pin into my journal.

I'll find it again someday and perhaps I'll cry. But perhaps I'll smile with the warmth of your memory spun round my fingers for a brief second as I fly back to that Indian summer day on my parent's lawn with you squinting in the sun and I smiling brave.

Staring at the ceiling in the dark

Same old empty feeling in your heart

'Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast

you see her when you fall asleep

But never to touch and never to keep

'Cause you loved her too much

And you dived too deep

You only need the light when it's burning low

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low

Only hate the road when you're missin' home

Only know you love her when you let her go

~Let Her Go (performed by Jasmine Thompson)~

Leaving on a jet plane

My brother and his little family are moving to Montana. It's the furthest from home any of my siblings have ever gone permanently. My parents are also moving...although only a short walk from the house they built when I was 16.

Change is difficult for me. Especially if it involves my family. I was too frightened, as a child, to tell even my parents what had happened to me. All because my abuser threatened my family. Since that time I have been, understandably, very protective and almost over-attached to each member of my family - and, by extension, their families. Although I can rationally say it is fine for my brother to move, fine for my parents to build a new house, emotionally, I am a mess about it. The way we think and feel - how convuluted it is! And how much of it is determined when we are just kids?

My brother Scott and his twin girls, Katie and Jess

Scott is 18 months younger then me and we were so close as toddlers that he felt like part of myself. 

We had disagreements sometimes, but for the most part I would do anything - and give up any toy - just to know he loved me. We remained close through junior high and high school. I was the first person he told when he was getting married. We often spent time together even after I had graduated from college and he was living and working 3 hours away from where I lived and worked. He also chose a profession very similar to mine in many ways - I am a nurse, and he is a police chief. We both would put our lives on the line to save a complete stranger's life.

It will be hard to lose the many visits per year we have shared together. I am thankful his move is coming in the era of free internet videocalls, text messaging, and Instagram. I hope all the technology facilitates a close relationship even though we are far away.

What kind of change do you resist? Do you struggle with long-distance relationships within your family, wishing they lived closer to yours?

Space to breathe

My husband, wonderful husband, has given me a break. Time to breathe. To rediscover. To push tentacles into the Solid Rock. Would you be in prayer for me, my friends? That I would find that spirit of peace HE promises, that I would be impenetrable to the lies of the evil one, that I would heal and grow and come back home more whole?

Today I am in North Dakota with one of the wisest and sweetest 20 year olds I've known. I've cared for her since her infancy, and now she shrouds me with her grace, her embrace, her understanding. Tomorrow, another day here in the drifts. Next week, peace at her mother's farm. I leave house and hearth and husband and children to seek that peace the Savior offers. To refuse other gods, those gods of anxiety and pain and wishing for an end to suffering and an end to hurting those I love. Pray, oh, pray. I am in desperate need of that Grace I whispered "yes" to at 4 years old, the undeserved favor, the sweetness of the all-forgiving Christ love.

Pray it would surround me, bathe me, heal those ancient wounds with the washing of the Living Water and the blood shed for me.

Humbly I come before the Throne, and humbly I come to you, broken, asking that I  might see and believe and take hold to Redemption.

My boy-child

Easter 2008, Caleb at 2 weeks old

Four years ago, you made your entrance in a slam-bam-thank-you-Ma'am birth that took my breath away with it's suddenness and beauty. You, perfect skin, blond little faux hawk hair, that look of consternation you wore as a newborn. My one and only son, the child for whom I prayed as Hannah did Samuel, yet my arms held lock-tight where her's gave way in obedience. My favorite boy in the whole world - I have whispered this line of love into your ear from the time it was tiny as a seashell. You were never overshadowed by the cancer diagnosed when you were six weeks old. You shone like a star in the dark night of that 2008 year that was filled with suffering, bad news, and separation.

I remember handing you to my mother, your grandma, in the hour before I swallowed my radioactive iodine pill, remember the tears stinging as I ached to nurse you and longed to hold you over those two long weeks I didn't see you at all. What if you didn't remember? What if the powerful bond we'd shared since your birth was shattered by the distance and time when Mama wasn't there to comfort you?

You are a boy now, not a baby any longer. My last baby grown tall and lean, strong and funny. I feed you cookies and chocolates to replace the year of breastmilk that you missed out on. You shower me with your kisses and my heart is soothed. You didn't forget. You are still my son.  I read of Samuel, the story of Isaac at the alter on the mount, and I can't do this. I had to lay you aside for those weeks of radiation. I can't imagine ever putting you down again.

Happy 4th birthday, my sweet Caleb! You are loved more than you may ever know.

This hour comes

Truly, truly I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life shall lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say, 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour: 'Father, glorify your name.' (John 12: 24, 25, 27, 28)

The weekend is full of events, heavy with expectations. We celebrate our brother's engagement, surrounded by his young friends, his beautiful fiancee. A chalkboard proclaims I Corinthians 13.

Sunday comes and goes, a sermon on 19th century spirituals and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. We sing "We Shall Overcome", joining our voices to those of the marchers that fateful day in 1968 as civil rights activists marched on Washington. Naps heavy and silent fill the house. Then a rowdy party, the football playoff game blaring and kids rambunctious.

This morning dawns early, in the dark late hours of the night, 4 a.m. devotions with my husband, eyelids still heavy and off to work. It is the day of my first injection, preparation for my radioactive iodine scan. I cannot comprehend that it is already upon me again, this next leavetaking from home. I pile up dirty laundry to wash, think about what warm blankets to pack.

While I join with Jesus as He wept at Gethsemane, I have to also own in His rhetorical question at the feasting table at Lazarus' home: shall I say, 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour, 'Father, glorify thy name.'


1373: Engagement party for Nick and Kathy
1377: Aunts watching children
1390: Sunday sermon
1392: Thyrogen

Top 5 Things Parents Hate About the Hospital

1. There is no privacy. This is difficult on many levels - from private discipline of your child, to having the time and privacy needed to use the bathroom. Ever tried to use only a public toilet for 10 days in a row? Let's just say it can inhibit even the most stolid of personal routines. I remember one parent who threatened to use the toilet in his child's intensive care room: the toilet was surrounded by a flimsy hospital curtain. I always wondered what possessed him to threaten such a thing, and assumed he must have been joking, although he seemed frighteningly serious at the time. Now I have experienced the push/pull of wanting to be by your child's side 24 hours a day - every single second of the 24 hours - and also needing time to yourself for the basic necessities like toileting and eating. What makes a good pediatric nurse? During some down time, they offer to sit and read your ill child a story so you can make a bathroom run or go heat up some food!

2. Living in a bedroom is just plain difficult. Space is so limited in the hospital, and common areas are kept to a minimum, and with limited access, to control the spread of germs. The hospital we've been at has put a lot of thought into group playrooms and access to toys, videos, games, computers and gaming for kids. I am thankful we were there - many smaller hospitals have much fewer options! A good pediatric nurse makes sure patients and families are aware of their resources, and encourages them to leave the room when possible.

3. The food is awful. Not just bland, tasteless, and overcooked. Awful nutritionally, too. I wonder how much more money would be spent if a natural foods chef were hired and some real food was put on the plate? Fresh salad with some mixed greens would be a great first step! Why does hospital food have to resemble cardboard? A good pediatric nurse tells the patient and family what is best on the hospital menu - and makes sure the unit is stocked with some quick, easy alternatives to the cafeteria food.

4. You can forget sleeping! Even if you request no vital sign monitoring at night, even if you hang a "do not disturb" sign on the door, even if you stand watch at the door. Your child will get very little sleep and you will get even less. I wonder if nurses and aids have forgotten that hospital routines vastly reduce the quality of sleep and sleep deprivation reduces healing? A good pediatric nurse is one who thinks first of the schedule of the child, and keeps his or her schedule flexible so that rest and sleep times can be observed.

5. You have to constantly choose between tending your ill child and caring for your children at home. This is even worse when you live far away from the hospital. A good pediatric nurse encourages families to invite the other children to the hospital when possible, and notifies the family of sibling events and areas where siblings are welcome even when visiting policies are limited.

**If you've had a child in the hospital, and you have something to add - or if something else makes your top 5 - please comment by clicking on the pencil and leaving your remarks.

Grasping grace

...to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you...Deuteronomy 8:16 (exc.)

I heard this verse quoted on the children's Bible hour we listen to on the radio on the way home from our small group meeting. It really struck me that being humbled and tested by cancer is an opportunity for obedience and submission that will result in good things for my family and I. As I read verses to the kids, and talk with them about our upcoming separation for my next scan/treatment, it shocks me how clearly they see the love of God in this difficult situation. God has provided doctors, and treatments; He watches over me so I can come home to them again. I admire their attitude and grasp on His grace. I want to absorb it, emulate it.

On a lighter note, a couple of gratuitous pics for the day...of the Moroccan dark chocolate bon-bons and traditional honey and almond pastries I made from scratch today. These will be served at the Valentine's Dinner & a Movie event I am cooking & baking for on Saturday. Trust me, you want these recipes! Click on the links to go to them!

The unexpected

God is our Refuge and Strength [mighty and impenetrable to temptation], a very present and well-proved help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains be shaken into the midst of the seas. ~ Psalm 146:1-2 (Amp)

Never a good idea to go to an oncologist expecting nothing. Usually the perennial pessimist, I lean toward the 'expect the worst, hope for the best' end of the spectrum. Today, feeling so uplifted and informed by our recent visit with the Chicago specialist, I went to my doctor expecting to hear that I would have an ultrasound and lab tests in April, and my next radioactive iodine uptake scan next November. I borrowed a breast pump yesterday from a friend, and this blissful image kept playing through my mind, despite my best attempts to push it away and ignore even the possibility:


And so I walked in, unaware. And God had to lift me up once again from a crumpled heap. I feel a little deadened today, numb to life, unable to process this level of pain over and over. There is an edge of anger to my thoughts, thoughts that feel like the burned edges of photos salvaged from a fire, singed and scarred. I wonder why God allows us to experience a false height of joy when He see the valley ahead? I trust He has a reason. But today it hurts.

For the sake of illucidating the details of my sad day at the doctor:
1) my lab test shows that the iodine has worked somewhat - it either killed cancer or functioning thyroid, because my hormone replacement is no longer adequate. (This is good news)

2) my cancer is not a slow-growing type, as all the other specialists have reassured me. It grew 1.5 cm in 1 month this spring, prior to being removed. Therefore, we need to be aggressive in treating and monitoring my cancer, at least for the moment.

3) I need my next scan ASAP. I was given two options: a Thyrogen-induced scan, which avoids the physical hardships of withdrawal from my hormone replacement, but costs about $25,000 (a cost of $2,300 for us); or the traditional approach, going off my medications for 6 weeks, followed by a scan and possible treatment (at a cost of about $40 to us). I chose frugally, on the hardship side of things. It is a hard day to be frugal.

4) My scan will be in late March. I will not be able to resume breastfeeding, because I would just have to stop again for 58 days following the scan dose. It isn't worth the trouble. I will have to be away from home for 5 days total surrounding the I-131 dose for the uptake scan.

5) My endocrine oncologist here in Eau Claire continues to think there is a high likelihood that I will require a second ablation, which means another 17 day separation from my kids and husband and just - life. Ugh.

Winter jewels

I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul will make its boast in the LORD;
the humble will hear it and rejoice.

O magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt His name together.
Psalm 34

Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth -
Widths out of the Sun --
Loneliness looks so.
Emily Dickinson

The snow surrounds the house like a million glittering stars. The weeds bejeweled. It is a little girl's wonderland...an entire earth of sparkles. Rosy walks outside and breaths in deep, filling her little soul with the beauty of it. I watched her walk through the side yard yesterday, one step...bend, scoop, stare, smile. Repeat. The panes of the kitchen window seemed suddenly stifling and thick, too great a separation between her world and mine. In these quiet moments, watching life unfold like a fairytale before me, I feel my heart expand, and then suddenly contract. Like squeezing back tears, or stamping out pain so you can ignore it a little longer. The very beauty of my life is what makes it bittersweet - brings out the longing to be here for so much longer. I wish I could set a giant glass dome over moments like these, freeze them like the plaster figures in snowglobes, forever atwirl in a flurry of snow.

Christmas sweets

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. ~ Psalm 19:7-11 KJV

The past week can only be described as sweet. It has been that sweetness, like a honeycomb, that has tooth to it. Substantial sweetness, not the kind that melts in your mouth, but the type that takes a little effort to enjoy. Christmas looms like a hovering glow, our house is a busy hive of wool scraps, and sweet smells, paint-spattered children, burnt oak shavings fresh off the circular saw, the sharp percussion of stamping metal and packages arriving on the doorstep daily. The calendar is full, and the house is in continual disarray, with a weeks worth of laundry always in queue for the washer.

I am finding truth in the saying, "You never know what you have until it is taken away". I am praising God that, thus far, it was a temporary pause. I am still here. I am back home to enjoy, with new fullness, all that God has given me. February is looming large on the horizon. My slides were sent today to the eminent pathologist at the University of Pennsylvania for a second opinion. Cancer - nay, mortality - is always in the background. How thankful I am for a foreground of Christmas cheer to distract me from it!

Lament & proclaim

A phone conversation with a friend reminded me today that some separations are worse than those in my life of late. Imagine being ideologically opposed to your dearest loved one, with hardly a hope for reconciliation and an eternal future of being torn apart. While I was in physical isolation from my family, we shared so much using other forms of communication. The cry of my heart was tempered, the long low, plaintive wail of a lone violin crying out in solo for a moment before being rejoined by the symphony. But those who are eternally destined for a different home than those they love...their soul doesn't cry or weep, but is rent in two, the relentless crescendo of a hurricane beating in on a lonely, evacuated shore of endless sorrow. My grief was a season and theirs a lifetime.

Imagine yourself standing in a boat on the Bering Sea. Your comrade is struggling in the surf, tossed overboard by a rogue wave of ice and sleet. At your feet is rope that has been blackened by the salt water, the ragged fray of the coil in your hand biting into your grip. You don't know where the rope ends, and whether or not it is actually anchored to anything on board. Would you hesitate to throw the lifeline to your friend, unsure whether it will hold his weight, or whether it will be long enough to reach him? Can you imagine his consternation if he were to watch you, contemplating all the unknowns about the rope you hold, while he sinks for the second and third time, struggling against the tide, his heavy gear inexorably pulling him under?

Christ is the rope. Many of my friends and loved ones are the drowning man. When I proclaim Christ to them, I do it completely and wholeheartedly out of love. Because I am on the ship forever, and will be willing, until I die, to toss the rope of salvation to anyone drowning who will reach their hand out to grasp it. During this season, it is foremost on my mind daily. Our culture has sold the idea that Christmas is a season of benign good cheer, and incessantly batters us with images of handshakes, group hugs, smiles, and comfort food...or worse, materialistic shopping, giving and gleeful shrieks over presents...neglecting the undeniable Christian Christmas imagery. Christmas is, after all, about Christ - and while modern Christianity has bought into the idea of inclusion, touting Christian love as mutually exclusive to Christian witness, Christianity is also a divisive and exclusive faith. I hear this in Christ's own words, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. (Luke 11:23)

Speak Christ in love to those who listen...and perhaps those who will not...this Christmas. Pray, earnestly, for the salvation of lost souls. Let your heart swell with the hurricane of loss and love felt by those closest to them, let the waves of pain beat the shore as you beg for grace and a beseeching call to be spoken in their own heart this Christmas season.

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and Angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
~ What Child is This

The grand sweep

When I left my home for this extended absence, I left a basket full of gifts for my children. One for each child, for each day. I envisioned them opening them in a difficult moment...a moment of missing Mama, at different times each day. Instead, they rush to the basket first thing every morning, and gleefully open their gift to see how I intended to start this day for them. I am thankful God directed me and gave me heightened awareness as I carefully selected each day, calendar in hand, knowing a few skeleton details of what that day would hold for them. Monday was picture day. Cute, decorated 3"x 3" picture frames, one for each child, with a photo of me loving them up. Something to brighten the beginning of another week without Mama. A visual reminder of the strength and tenacity of a mother's love.

I find myself waking in the morning, a little later than usual, but still at a reasonable hour. Around 7 a.m., I wake up, look into the sky and unwrap the day like the gift it is. I am away from my loved ones, it is true. Yet here I am, on the North Shore of Lake Superior, with the pale blue sky above and the grandeur of that beloved and familiar wild granite shore undergirding me. Enveloped in the warm air and presence of two of my favorite people on earth. Eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, the familiar slip of a hand of cards under my swollen fingertips. I am incredibly alive. There is poison brewing in me, and I feel it's undercurrent, but I am not pulled under by it. I am buoyed by it. I bob on the surface with remarkable resilience and spirit. "I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly"...as do the days.

This day is a pearl, just like my unexpected Monday of a week past. Sometimes my pearls reflect the dull tears my eyes refuse to cry in their dry state; sometimes the crinkle of swollen eyes curved in smile. These are bittersweet days, but days nonetheless. I read something today that reminded me of WHO is waiting, and what Home He is waiting in! Who am I to ask to linger? How would my husband feel if I begged to stay away from home just one more day, stretching the 17 to 18?? How would I feel if my husband begged me to stay away for just one more? How ridiculous! Yet that is what my request for "life" amounts to! My God has promised that He, in His wisdom, omnipotence and grace, has granted me the perfect number of days! Why do I ask for "just one more"? I cannot get my head around that question right now. Not to mention my heart!

Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. ~ Job 14:5

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. ~ Psalm 90:12

And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man,"dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." ~ Revelation 1:12-18

Who am I to be afraid? For the First and the Last, the Living One, miraculously, tenderly, whole-heartedly and unabashedly cares for me!

Outside looking in

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
~ The Matrix (1999)

I had a painful preview tonight of what I sometimes imagine it will be like to be dead. I had a wonderful date three feet across a table from my husband. We talked about the kids a lot. I followed him back to my aunt and uncle's house, where the children were, and quietly parked my car, lights off, to watch them through the window. Those ten minutes spent watching their dear little mannerisms and hearing little whispers of their laughter and gay voices through the pane of glass that separated us were exactly what I imagine it would be like to be dead...exquisitely wonderful and exquisitely painful at the same time. To see and not touch, to hear and not feel. To be an observer in what "should" be my life. It was more than I could bear, and I left in a rush for a little Indian restaurant on the corner, where I'm sure they thought I was a little insane, rushing in with tears streaming, frozen to the core and begging for a cup of hot tea (a cup of cheer, the real, literal soul-cheering kind, is what I really desired at that moment!).

I wish I could leave it at that, that my soul didn't force my brain to go deeper into the issues that underlie this entire vignette and make it so exquisitely painful. The true issue is one of the heart, one of selfishness. For I have selfishly absorbed that entirely humanistic idea that my life is my own to live, my deserved right. In truth, it is a gift, each day and each hour. In truth, God would faithfully provide if my death comes about while my children are still babes. For it is not through me that they consist...it is through God in heaven. In truth, my death will not be tinged by these human sorrows. Although it is incomprehensible to me now, my death will not be the script of It's a Wonderful Life, for although each of us adds a remarkable human thumbprint to the existence of others, that is all it is. It is the spark and thumbprint of the divine that makes our lives truly remarkable, and it is the mercy of the Almighty that promises a death of joy instead of one of aching loss...for I will turn mourning into gladness, I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow, promises our God (Jeremiah 31:13). I do not die to cry over the loss of my life, but to rejoice in the life I have gained because of the death of my Savior! What a full circle we come!

It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. ~ Titus 2:12-14

There'll be no dark valleys when Jesus comes...
There'll be no more sorrow when Jesus comes...
There'll be songs of greeting when Jesus comes,
to gather His loved ones home!
~ William Orcutt Cushing, 1823-1902

The song of my heart tonight can only be captured in my absolute favorite Italian aria, Nessun Dorma. I have included it here sung by the untrained and absolutely beautiful voice of the unlikely Paul Potts. Here are the words and the translation:
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore
e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia!
(Il nome suo nessun saprà!...
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)
Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!

Nobody shall sleep!...
Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess,
in your cold room,
watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know...
No!...No!...
On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)
Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!

Pearls

The way of mercy
Takes me to the least
Down the road of suffering
To the wedding feast

For I know that You are faithful
As we walk these fields of white
To the weary and the hurting
let Your Kingdom comes
~Faithful, David Ruis

Prayers are always answered. Yesterday was a glorious day, a string of pearls unfolding before my very eyes as I opened gift after gift streaming straight from the hands of the Father into my bruised heart. Just when I thought I was at the end of the necklace, another bead glistened in the warm, Indian summer sun. The morning began with waiting...but not for the radioactive treatment, rather the glorious arrival of my newest niece or nephew! Megan was admitted to the hospital Sunday night, and I couldn't believe God was granting my prayer that I be able to hold their little one before I was quarantined! I called early in the morning to see about delaying my treatment, and was told I could come anytime before 4:30 p.m. Another pearl: a beautiful, sunlit day to treasure my children, share life with them, breathe in their sights, and sounds, and smells. Fill my cup up to overflowing so I can spill some drops of joy into my barren lap on a darker day in the November that will surely come.

We went to music class and delighted together in the cacophony and chaos that is kids and music and dancing in a high-ceiling art gallery lit with eastern windows and glistening pine floors. We gloried in Kosher salt at a local deli and beautiful, crumbly goat cheese that a low-iodine Mama can feast upon. We napped together in the lazy, beetle-buzzing afternoon in the unexpected bliss of open windows and the sound of corn husks rustling in the warm, summer-like breeze. I packed my car slowly, savoring every quiet moment of the house God has given us, listening to the children sleep and staving off sorrows that threatened at every moment. Still waiting for the call announcing the birth of that beautiful babe...

Late afternoon came, and no baby. Confounding! The day was a gift just for me...brought about by the "impending birth", which didn't happen. A glorious, free day that I wasn't expecting. A drive back into the reality of the city with the children bursting at the seams from our joyous, momentous, and totally ordinary afternoon. Hugs, hugs, more hugs, holding tears in with iron bands of will as I smiled and hugged some more. Swallowing the largest lump my throat has ever known...swallowing it a hundred times, tasting it's salty bitterness, and thanking God for my afternoon of pearls. One hundred times easier to swallow the large blue horse-pill of radioactive iodine. Primed with grief and disbelief, my throat found that an easy job. Sitting in a sterile little room with my husband beside me, I stared down into a little lead canister, took out the glass vial, unscrewed the cap and tipped it back to accept this cure that threatens to be worse than the disease that now invisibly ails me. The ache of forgetting a good-bye kiss before the poison passed my lips. Walking away carefully observing the "3 foot rule". Feeling the world open up like a chasm before me.

That longed-for freedom...that abyss of unlimited choice...the silence as the "fetters" of motherhood and wifery dropped from my ankles and wrists and shattered around my feet. How shall I now live? Adrift once again in a sea of strangers. Floating along in the tide and whim of self. What moors me? What steers me?

Underneath, there He is. His heart beat still propels me. My joy is still in Him. What a pearl to discover, that after all this time, and all these externally imposed guides and rigorous boundaries, I have continued to internalize the lessons He is teaching, to integrate them as part of my self and what propels me and gives me meaning. I am not adrift. My ways and means have shifted, and my purpose is the same. In this, as in all else, I am here for His glory. I exist for His service. I pray for His guiding hand. I long for His touch.

Waking this morning, the world is tasteless and odorless. The world is magically sterile, and glitters with new sparkle through my eyes, swollen and skewed from the localized effects of the radiation. There is a philosophical lack of focus, an attendant lack of agenda and timeframe; and a physical reality, an inability to perceive the visual all around me. Words and worlds are as hazy as time and duty are.

Pearls of sleep, and friendship, and deep, uninterrupted drinking at the Well of meaning and Truth. I curl up by the Well for a good long rest after five years of many thirsty moments.

That is what it's like to leave your life, your home, your job; everything behind you, it feels. Everything in front of you different and intimidating and wonderful all at once. For me that has been 24 hours of radioactive cancer treatment. Now, only 456 hours to go...

Preparations

This is what it looks like for a busy mother to leave her family behind for nearly 3 weeks. A mobile above the crib, an oddity in a house where little sleeping is done in cribs; bottles, waiting in queue to be washed; bags of pre-made baby food for weekend trips, packaged and ready to pre-pack for my dear, busy, harried husband; notes on the children's schedules, their likes, their dislikes; menu ideas outside the bursting pantry that now holds 3 weeks worth of neatly packed groceries.