A Spring of Joy

Today is one of those days where I can’t seem to staunch the deluge of tears. Every little thing sets me off and sometimes nothing sets me off and I just cry and cry and cry. My body is in so much pain today, and with pain of the body there is often pain of the heart and soul and mind. It’s the melancholy in me.

I’ve had a good weekend… my kiddos were home from school half day on Friday which I love, love, love. Bella girl brought home a friend for a sleepover and oh, y’all, the giggling and the girliness and the beautiful friendship. I drove them to Michael’s craft store to treat them with fairy garden supplies, and we laughed and shopped and picked out hats and ribbons and finally I was told, “Get me out of here, Mrs. D., before I ask you to buy me the whole store.” We schemed and designed and planned for future sleepovers and Christmas crafts, then we drove home with music blaring and sweet voices singing along from the back seat.

Home found us digging through my craft box and then the quiet of the afternoon as I napped while the boys read and played Legos and the girls designed beautiful fairy gardens. I baked them butterscotch bars and then failed miserably on dinner while I tried to substitute the wrong kind of ham and the wrong kind of cheese in my broccoli bake, but they were all so gracious with me. After supper there was Mario Kart and reading by the fire with my Bri, Coop at our feet. Bedtime was early for me with my pain, but Bri made sure the girls got tucked in and tended to all the things that needed tending.

The girls rose early and snuggled under blankets to watch Tinkerbell. I got up and sat by the fire with my Bear as we waited for friends for him. He spent the morning at a walk-a-thon fundraiser and had a wonderful time. Breakfast out and a “proper” tea party and a dance party in the bedroom found the afternoon coming too quickly and the sadness of their parting struck a chord in me. I thought of all the sleepovers I’ve shared with my childhood friend, Monica, who has just had yet another surgery, and the longing welled. I am missing her 40th birthday party next weekend, because there is just no way for me to make it happen in the midst of my treatments, and my heart is so very sad.

Saturday night I questioned whether or not I’d be able to join my family out for Halloween. Every year we celebrate with friends downtown. I helped my Bella-girl get her Anne of Green Gables costume on and the sadness in her eyes when I mentioned not going broke my heart. I took some pain meds and pushed through, and it was yet another special evening. Unable to walk in the neighborhood with my loves, I sat on the porch and chatted with the other ladies and handed out candy, drinking my Earl Grey Tea, and enjoying the crisp Fall evening.

This morning when I woke, my pain was decidedly worse. I sent my loves on to church and hunkered down in blankets and pillows and books and my computer and my stationery. And I cried. A lot. My mind gets so jumbled when my body hurts so badly, and the collision of mind and heart is chaotic.

I cried reading articles online because people can argue so poorly and I don’t like confrontation anyway, but it just gets so hard to wade through all the opinions and the anger and the “I’m right and you’re wrong” when the areas are often so gray. I cried reading Facebook statuses, because we can be so quick to judge others and see only our way. I cried writing notes to friends who are hurting, and I hurt, too, because I want the pain to just go away.

I cried listening to an online sermon from my friends’ church in Nashville because the truth was exactly what I needed to hear, and I cried listening to the music they sang before the sermon, because it echoed that same need. Then I missed my friends in Nashville and I cried some more. I cried because as Kendra said last night while we sat around eating chili and cornbread, “There’s nothing like college friends, eh, Ang?”

I cried because I didn’t want Bri to be at church, I wanted him home holding me. And I cried because it was such a sweet weekend, and I really have so much to be thankful for and I didn’t want to be crying. I cried because I knew Bri would come home from church and ask what he should fix the kids and I didn’t really have anything easy for him to make. I cried because I’m tired of clean eating and I really just want a bloomin’ onion or some Chinese food, and I’m tired of worrying that everything I eat will feed my cancer and help it kill me.

Then when Bri came home I cried some more, and he held me and then he fixed the kids grilled cheese and went out to work on his car.

Bella girl is writing notes now and tromping around in my boots for fun and Ash-man is watching football and Bear is curled up next to me working on homework, and the weekend is still sweet even in the midst of pain.

I’m really not sure why I’m sharing all this here. None of it is deep, but all of it is real. It’s just more of life. It’s hard and it’s beautiful, yet it’s easy to look at the problem and forget the promises. But even in the midst of pain, I know the promises are true. And we hold to those promises, and we laugh and we cry and we live.

“Live to the point of tears.”
(~Albert Camus)