Numbering Days, Week 17

Because of Thanksgiving, I started and ended this week around tables filled with family. I am most blessed! There was a weightiness to it, but it was heavy with gratitude. That we have each other, that we have this year, together.

You can mourn what's been lost even while you acknowledge what you still have. 

Your grief doesn't lessen your gratitude, it transforms it. Holy, fragile, beautiful.

~Michele Cushatt

Shaun and I were on the road by 5:30 AM on Monday, hoping to beat the worst of NYC morning rush hour. Before we left I wrote the kids notes and made sandwiches, like I was a normal mom. Its such a game-changer this time around, that they don't need childcare, or even transportation for the most part.

I would prefer to never go to New York City again in my life, but I can't deny the beauty and grandeur of it. I was amazed by how many leaves are still on the trees.

Treatment was seamless enough and we didn't have an appointment with the doctor so we were home about an hour after the kids got home from school. I slept during treatment, on the ride home and immediately crawled into bed for the night. Sleep is my best bet for the first few days.

Love comes in foil and takeout containers. It comes in handwritten cards and timely text messages. There is potential for this to be such a lonely road, instead we are well cared for and reminded often that people are thinking of us and praying. 

To my great annoyance my blood count levels made the threshold just enough to be able to receive  treatment, but required an injection. They asked that I go back to New York to have my chemo pump taken off and then the shot. It was the last thing I wanted to do two days after chemo and the day before Thanksgiving, but my attempts to counter offer were ignored.

My friend Shelva was in town for the holiday week and jumped at the chance to drive two hours to NY and two hours back on the busiest travel day of the year. I'm grateful for the time we had together, even in my state. 

We often marvel at how different life is from our teen years and we were together whenever possible. Now we are parenting our own teens, growing gray hair, talking about our respective surgeries and making stops at the cancer center. Lifelong friends are a rare and beautiful treasure.

My girls and my in-laws executed Thanksgiving Day such that I got to have my house full of people without doing much of anything, which was exactly what I felt up for. 

Again, a table full of people I love and a heart of gratitude.