Blessings I can touch

I cannot put into words how good this past week has been. 

I am eating well.  Too much.  I still have nausea and still mistake the smells of good food baking for the aroma of garbage, but if you were to see me today, and realize that my hat was not merely ornamental, you might just think me an over-tired woman.  A tired woman like every other woman in America. 

The lethargy and bone-weary-fatigue is not beside me, inside me, haunting me, keeping me far and away in another land of shadows and hurt and loss.  The shortness of breath is minimal - almost negligible.  I can move about.  Friends told me Friday morning they could see a "spark" in my eye - and I admit - it has not been there for ever so long. 

This has been my easiest step down from chemo ever.  I got the full dose of Taxal last Wedenesday, but they halved my Ro dose - the experimental chemo that I take for 3 days - and it has been an enormous difference.  A tremendous difference. 

My blood still feels well and happy for the time being.  All of my time has not been spent just recovering. 

I have a life after all.  

I didn't feel like Scott was dragging me and guiding me everywhere I had to go - I could think, I could move.  I navigated my own steps without help. 

It has been a long, long time since I have not needed tending and lots of care for days on end. 

*******

This weekend, I smelled the hair of my grand-babies as I held them.  I held them tight and breathed deeply.   

I made them give me four more hugs than is absolutely necessary.  Then they gave me four more hugs.  Their life bubbled around me.  They told me tales of their lives and what keeps them "so busy".  They told me their thoughts, what bothered them, what made them "so happy"; what they thought about when they were alone in bed at night.   

We grieved over a popped balloon, and laughed over blocks falling down.  We made "patterns" with the blocks and talked about "sequencing" - which one will come next.  They wanted to know why I didn't have any hair, and I told them the cancer I had needed some strong drugs to get rid of it, and that it also made my hair not grow.  I told them I still had ten toes and ten fingers and that hair grows back. 

They counted on a clock face "how many" it would be until my hair grew back and the magic number seems to be "8".  And I told them eight months might be a pretty good guess. 

They wanted to see my head, but I didn't want to make them afraid, so we deferred.  

Their minds have grown since I held them last and I marvel at their growth in that short time, which was the longest of times.  I have seen them, but not interacted with them.  I have watched them but not connected with them.  I have loved them, but not with a love that they could feel and hold onto. 

I remember my first visit to the Cancer Treatment Center and as I sat and waited for one of my doctors in a room that I knew was going to forever change my life, I looked over the walls, the windows, the door.  The building has some really nice decorative glass for doors and dividers and as I was admiring that, I noticed down at the bottom a little hand print.

A child had been in that room and leaned against the glass with their hand.

I see young mothers sometimes bring their children with them to treatment.  If those young mothers are on the same drug regimen I am, I do not know how they can continue to interact with their small children as mothers, when all you want to do is lay in bed and try to regain some strength.

I read the blog of one mother doing a similar drug regimen, and she hired a nanny for a year.  It is a deep grief to go through this and not be able to be who you want to be as a grandmother.  I cannot imagine how many times that is multiplied as a young mother.  

So I think of those little fingers on that glass, and I try to tell my little peeps as much truth about cancer as possible, but still I want to protect them from swallowing it and carrying that horrid information and being afraid.  They don't have to be in the room with me and hear things that hurt big ears - and even more-so - little ones. 

*******

But one day this past week, we hunted Easter eggs outside on a beautiful sun-kissed day; we watched Millie sit beside the bowl of chocolates and eat it until her fingertips were a melted brown ooze; and instead of her trying to clean it off, she suddenly rubs her hands together and has chocolate all over them and grins really big - like it is the best day ever. 

And it is. 

I watched a big yellow balloon pop suddenly and the subsequent tears, and then watched cousin Zoe offer Addy her balloon so there would not be so much sadness.  But there were no substitutes for your own balloon popping, and there is no substitute for grieving what you had and now is gone. 

But there were smiles in between tears.  And lots of arms to hug it away. 

There is no substitute for life's "bitters" - we cannot pretend them away, we cannot wish them away, we cannot ignore them away.  We have to look at them pretty squarely or they come back to haunt you more.

But the bitters make the sweets so much sweeter.  

And even though we have to face our bitters, the kindnesses of others helps.  Knowing that someone cares while you are in the deepest of the bitter pit, is a sweet balm. 

*******


We are given "one days", "one moments" and we don't even see them most times.  That time will not pass by again.  I was given some pretty glorious moments the past week.  After my carbo treatment tomorrow, I may be in that far away land of hurt again for a while, but that just makes the sweet sweeter still.  I have these heart pictures of my loved ones.  I have held them close enough to breathe deeply their connection to me. 

My children gave me a day of special blessing to be together with all of them, and I hold it tight, and taste it, and relish it ever so reverently - then rub my hands together to get it all over and just smile a big grin.