PlazaJen: Passion Knit

The cancer has spread to my father's brain. Radiation begins today, chemo to follow. Second opinions to follow as well. At least we have action & steps & things to do while the question of where the cancer is coming from is still to be determined. I hate hearing him cry. Perhaps that is the price we eventually pay for a society that doesn't want a man to cry, ever, so he is always the rock, the strong man, the wise and knowing being who never wavers, and yet sometimes life throws huge curve balls that bring you to your knees.

He wants to be alone. I so desperately want to hold him, see the wrinkles around his eyes as he squints at me with his sardonic humor. He wants and needs alone, because that is how we are. We rebuild and fortify in solitude, find our center, help us get off our knees. I turned and screamed through a snotty blur at a co-worker yesterday, "I CAN'T BE AROUND ANYONE RIGHT NOW". She was trying to offer to drive me home, bless her heart. I called later to apologize, but I needed, REQUIRED my solitude at that point. To sit and hang on the steering wheel and sob until my chest hurt, then to drive home, so slowly, bobbing my head rythmically, counting silently over and over, as I resealed and respackled the fissures and cracks in my heart so I could function another day. And I'm not the one fighting cancer.

So I will wait. And daily reseal and respackle and accept that I will not have a single day for a while, where my eye makeup stays on all day. And I feel gratitude to everyone who lets me be this way, who doesn't judge or tell me what I should do. That is a gift, and I am blessed to have so many people who care and are praying and want to see this whole thing turn out well. I thank you from the bottom of my broken little heart.

The email signature of a sales rep, who has no idea how much the words meant to me:

When the World says Give Up

Hope Whispers, Try One More Time