Nine Years and Normal Again!

As my life has filled with ever more activity (of various degrees of value), my blogging has ground to a near halt.  Looking back, I see that my last post was a year ago today – wow!  Well, I cannot let August 29 pass without looking back over the last nine years, particularly this last one.  August 29, 2009, was the day we almost lost our son and it became a defining moment in my life.  When you have had a child with cancer (leukemia in particular), it redefines everything.  Spending years on end dealing with the horrifying reality of the cancer itself, as well as the ongoing damage from treatment, can easily consume you.  It impacts everything: child, job, siblings, marriage, time, finances, spiritual life, sanity and even the dog.

Sitting here tonight, I realize that we have basically become normal again.  You are never completely normal when dealing with leukemia; especially after your child experiences a relapse.  After more times when death was a real possibility than I care to remember, I cannot keep from looking over my shoulder a bit to see if the cancer boogeyman is stalking us again.  But as time goes on, I look less often.  In time, I hope I can get to the point where I never look at all.  In fact, most of the time I don’t even think about it now – what a change!

This past weekend we spent some harrowing hospital hours late at night with some dear friends whose son was in critical condition from a horrible accident (and thankfully is recovering).  It brought back a great many memories from basically the same weekend in August nine years ago and all the outpouring of love and support we received.  One thing all of Brad’s struggles with cancer has done is to remove some of my inhibitions about intruding into the lives of others in times of crisis. 

If you think someone might be in a difficult spot and could use your presence, then I would encourage you to quit wondering and just go.  Don’t assume others will do it.  Don’t assume you aren’t wanted.  There aren’t many people who object to being considered valuable enough to have a friend drop what they are doing and come to them in a time of trouble.  Act now, and do it while you can – “normal” life isn’t always as normal as we’d like it to be.

August 29, 2009 – nine years ago today.  I could not have predicted what we would go through.  I had no idea if this day would even come.  Yet here we are, basically normal again.  Thanks be to God!