Disclaimer: This post gets a bit teary. I debated whether or not I should put the more emotional parts in this, but if you want to ride this rollercoaster with me, you must be ready for the highs and the lows….
News years Eve… December 31, 2008
The day started talking to my sister all the way to work (I love Wednesdays, I am going to work and she is coming home from work so we can talk uninterrupted for a little over an hour). Of course we were talking about the cancer, I had only found out the day before.
She asked how I was doing, and other than a few tears when I found out, I was doing pretty good. I told her how Meg, another friend of mine, had said the night before, “Thank goodness you didn’t get that new job last month. It was God’s way of looking out for you.” Then we started talking about God.
“I don’t think I could go through a “Why me God?” thing” I told me sister, “I don’t blame him for me getting this. I don’t think I could.” My sister (who was diagnosed with Muscular Sclerosis 4 years ago) agreed that she really never went through an “Oh God why did you do this” thing. “Actually” my sister said, “maybe God is helping you through this whole thing, trying to make it easier on you the best way he can.” We spoke of the new job that I didn’t get, and how because of the horrible pain in my breast we found the Alien, and subsequently how we found Bob as well. Maybe God was working in mysterious ways and figured that nobody would have found it at my next well-woman appointment and he wanted us to find it (hopefully) early enough to fix it.
All day, I was thinking of ways that God was trying to help me through this… My three year old started Sunday school and I would go to church while she was in class. I prayed all the time, but there is always something relaxing and soothing for me to be in a church closer to Him.
I shared all this with my BBC (BabyCenter) friends and they all agreed and supported me. Come to think of it, God giving me this group of wonderful women that I have shared the pregnancy of my last child with and now my everyday life with. It is all to help me, support me and show his love for me.
That night, we celebrated with our girls (my step-daughter was with her mother), the baby went to bed at regular time and my 3 year old got to “stay up late” with the grown-ups and celebrate the New Year (not really, instead of her going to sleep at 7:30pm, we let her stay up until 8:30pm,) and we brought out the champagne (sparkling-cider) and the special New Year cookies (Little Debbie’s Apple Flips). At 7:59 and 50 seconds, we started the countdown from 10 (she doesn’t know any better), then we sang songs and then said good bye to 2008 and hello to 2009. Then she went to bed, not any the wiser, and happy.
My husband and I tried to stay up until midnight, but at 11:30, I was pooped. It had been an exhausting few days, hell an exhausting month! Chris left with the dog to give her last walk of the evening and I went upstairs to get ready for bed.
In my head I just kept thinking about how God was blessing me to make this as easy on me as possible. I was counting my blessings. I walked in my daughter’s room; I leaned over my three year old and gave her kiss as she was sucking her thumb. If there was ever a “Mini-Me”, she would be it. She was the spitting image of me. I smiled when I thought this cause I always wanted a little one that looked like me. Then kissed my hand and touched my baby’s forehead in her crib. Where my 3 year old LOOKED like me, my baby was me on the inside. Her temper, attitude, liveliness, her need for attention, it was if my soul was born into her (for better or worse). I loved my children; it was then that stopped and thought again, “God is trying to make the cancer as easy on me and my family as he can… But what if he gave my husband, in our children, my body (our 3 year old) and soul (our baby) so it would be easier for him, when I die….
I froze, and then started shaking as the tears started pouring out of my eyes and sobs heaved through my entire body.
I whispered, “God, please don’t take me from my children.”
I left their room and couldn’t control my crying. I went into my bedroom and bathroom to get ready for bed, but I couldn’t stop crying.
“God, please don’t take me from my children.”
When my husband found me, I had given up washing my face or brushing my teeth I was sitting on the bed hunched over bawling. He came up beside me on the bed and pulled me in his arms and I just kept crying and saying over and over….
“God, please don’t take me from my children.”
Chris was awesome as usual. He calmed me down enough to get my pajamas on, teeth brushed and my face washed. We were able to ring in the New Year in each others arms and with I love yous and promises of getting through this and being stronger for it.
And when I rolled over to my side of the bed to go to sleep, I closed my eyes and whispered…
“God, please don’t take me from my children.”
Ohhhh LJ. :(
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