There are many of you who know of Heather. I read her blog, and never leave without my heart breaking. I mean, she's very encouraging... she's really wonderful... but despite all of her wonderful words (she's a wonderful writer)... there is still the reality that she is a woman fighting for her life... a wife who loves her husband, and a mother who adores her children... and she has cancer. There's a part of me that feels guilty for reading about her life as she shares of her sickness, nausea, heartache and pain... as I sit in my home... without cancer.
And so tonight, I went to her blog again... but this time, was touched by another woman who had touched Heather... and has now passed away to be with our Lord. And as I read Amy's blog (Living with Leukemia), tears fell on the school work I'd been previously preparing for tomorrow... and reality hit me again leaving me with an emptiness in my stomach as my life goes on "normally" while a husband and child's life will never be the same. Her husband wrote:
My dear beloved Amy has gone home to meet her Lord. Shortly after 4:00 PM on this, September 10th, 2007, she took her last sweet breath. Moments before, she leaned up to me, and with much effort, told me she loved me - and gave me a kiss through her oxygen mask.
As someone else said on another blog when their dear one passed away, I never knew one could be at so much peace and have such a broken heart at the same time.
As I continued to read Amy's blog and her trek over the past year... I came across a picture of her and her son... and I lost it. And, you know... I don't know if words can express what I feel or not. I don't understand how someone I've never met can touch me so deeply... and while there is joy in that this woman is no longer in pain and with our Saviour... there is still the earthly loss... and I wonder...
I wonder if I'm doing everything I should be doing with this life. Am I giving everything I have to make it all it can be... or too often do I let the things that matter the most... the things that all of a sudden would be like the very air I breathe if I were to find out that I may not live to see my children grow up? And then I get angry... because I know the answer... I know that on a daily basis I "just a minute" my children to put someone else's priority (including my own) above my own precious gifts... I get frustrated with them instead of enjoy them... I yell instead of laugh... I think about myself before my husband and complain before I express my love.
And so now, as I sit here typing (and crying)... I don't know what else to say... other than I'm still praying for the day that my husband and I will no longer have to try and squeeze in time to be together and that life won't be filled with so much stress... and we will sit at night with nothing more to do than be with our children... I pray for that day... but until then... I just pray for one more day... and pray that they know if I could... I would do so many things differently... and that I'm still trying...
I so understand your feelings. My daughter has a friend whose mother has breast cancer it is so hard to watch people with little children go through cancer. It is hard to watch anyone and everyone go through it but for those of us who have young children to watch another mother fight for her life is so hard. My selfish thought is "Would I be able to do it" and knowing in the next thought I dont want to know if I have the stuff to fight like that. I pray for the children who have lost or will lose a mother or father to this terrible disease, I pray God holds them extra close.
.....in prayer for these dear ones. I do not think that our hard "normal" days are meant to be tempered with the guilt of "it could be worse", as if we can somehow compare and quantify each and every woman and her own struggles. Truthfully, the greatest place to sit, regardless of the struggle or hardship, is at the feet of Jesus, ending every exhalation with gratitude. This, in reading all about Noah and Heather (and far, far too many others) is the gift they are giving to us through their grief: a scent of the Savior. May we be as faithful if and when the trials befall upon us.
Amy, my heart breaks as I read about Amy and her battle with cancer.
I know how you feel about wanting to not take life for granted and to to live each day as if it were our last. But reality is even with life threating diseases in our face life still goes on. We still have bills to pay, we still have laundry to do, we still have houses to clean, homework to get done, noses to wipe, groceries to buy, meals to make, jobs to go to, hospital bills to pay, doctor visits to make, prescriptions to pick up....All of these little tasks take up time and take away precious time from our families. It frustrates us to no end that we can't just skip all of it and focus on what really matters.
Everyday that I have to make Emily do her chores around the house and do all of the daily annoying things we have to do everyday I feel like such a monster. How can I make this poor kid with cancer do any of this. She should be living life to the fullest, she should just be having fun all the time. It just doesn't work that way though but oh how I wish it did.
We still screw up and yell at our kids and get mad at our husbands. Prayerfully though we always say we're sorry and admit when we are wrong. Communication is so healing when this stuff happens. When I mess up and yell at my kids I get on their level and I look them in the eyes and tell them how sorry I am and how in that moment I wasn't following the Lord and was following ME. And when I follow me and not Jesus oh how I screw up!! When I get mad at my husband we dialog about it and we just keep fighting (well we try to dialog it out) until we work it out. Fighting/dialoging is GOOD in a marriage because it means you are communicating and not letting things go. The worst thing you can do in any relationship is to deliberately not communicate.
Please don't be so hard on yourself, you are doing the BEST you can. Life will always get in the way so we just have to work a little harder to figure out what really matters. Like today, does it really matter if I make my bed right now or should I lay in it a bit longer and kiss and snuggle with my kids?
I totally am not making any sense.....I just wanted to be encouraging to you and love you and validate you. My brain is all mush right now so I'm not sure that I did.
and a woman seeking the Lord's Will (daily), a wife (striving to keep the romance alive), a "Smamma" (Step- mother) of one and a homeschooling mom of seven (I was never going to have children), who starts every day over (after messing SOME thing up the day before), knowing God's grace is overflowing (just like my laundry), and so thankful He's blessed me more than I'll ever deserve.
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•Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - Untitled Comment
JOYfully in Him,
Kelli @ www.embracingthejourneyexperiencingthejoy.blogspot.com