Saturday, August 08, 2009

a different life

Sarah sent me this today, and believe it or not I had read it a while back. But read it again...and it reminded me of sooo much.

Those tiny Hallmark calenders (you can pick up free), used to be the way I would manage my life. I kept one of them, and it remains in my safe at this time. I promised myself when I felt overwhelmed I would take it out.

there is scribble in bad writing

chemo 1st dose at home
radiation 11am
Dr. visit 2pm
hospice nurse 9am
sonogram! 10am find someone to stay with Mom
2nd round chemo, sick at 5pm
call Dr
PT test lab
oncology visit in Omaha
found out baby is a boy!
DH leaving for deployment
fly home to check on house
resign position at work
fly to Nebraska to check on Mom



it is filled to the brim, with lab dates, and all sort of horrid events, all sorts of wonderful events too.



It is the year I do not want to forget. It was the year of far to much emotion, with no break in between...

That is the way life is, if you are lucky.

There are times you want to pull the emergency cord, and cannot. "Hey I want off of this thing", but even though it is a horrid ride, you pray this will be be the final terrible bumpy ride. Certainly, a ride can never match this one? In the back of your brain you know better. There can always be a worse road, you do not have to look far.

And as with all things, you can look around the bus and look at others to see how they are fairing, some people tap feet, others knit, some hold a barf bag, some chat with one another, some have white knuckles as they have been on this bumpy road longer than most...

When you have a year or years that is packed with bad events, illness, death, life altering events it can exhaust even the best of spirits.

I do not have any advice...none. I wish I could help. It is not easy when you are far away, because really in the end you are a set of ears.

I kept that little book so I would not forget I made it off that road as a complete person, even if I felt like a different person at the end....

Most of the time I like who I became when I got off of that bus, and sadly there are days I miss the person I was when I bought the ticket.

3 comments:

Val said...

Your last line is so... Just... Exactly. The whole post is beautiful.

I'm sorry for the awful, grief-filled parts of your journey, I celebrate who you are now, and I so get missing the person you were when you bought the ticket, even though you stand a little taller being in the skin of the person you've become as a result of all that happened. Thank you for sharing your journey with us, and for reading mine.

Fermina Daza said...

There are times you want to pull the emergency cord, and cannot. "Hey I want off of this thing", but even though it is a horrid ride, you pray this will be be the final terrible bumpy ride. Certainly, a ride can never match this one? In the back of your brain you know better. There can always be a worse road, you do not have to look far.

In one paragraph, you have summed up the past 10 months of my life.

I can't say I want to necessarily remember this part/time of my life but, if it helps keep the rest of my life in perspective, then I will.

Tiffany said...

This is really beautiful but somber too. I found your blog definitely during a time of trial in my life. Maybe not an entire year, but definitely a time when there's a lot going on.

Thank you for sharing. It feels like a sort of strange comfort that you wrote about how I'm feeling these days...