Ba Hum Bug!

Sweet dreams...said Tye (the other night after wrestling around and putting off going to sleep).

Sweet dreams Tye.

Merry Christmas Mommy.

Merry Christmas Tye.

Hey Dad.

Yes Tye.

Merry Christmas you old grump.

(Mommy in the background laughing hysterically)...it was just too cute.

In defense of the old grump, Tye actually picked that up from a Donald Duck Scrooge movie he has been watching! Even so, it was classic, considering how tense things have been around here lately!

So I bombed out on my promise to post every few days. I guess the last several times I've posted, it has felt like I've just unloaded about how awful things are, and I was trying to spare you all! The real reason is because life goes on with cancer, and life right now is just crazy. We went on Sunday to Unionville and enjoyed a great Halley Christmas. I thought a lot about how we didn't know last Christmas if Brian would even be here this Christmas...then I realized that none of us know that. The trip wore Brian out, yet he was happy to be there. The kids were spoiled rotten and we ended up staying overnight and coming back on Monday morning. This almost threw Amberlea for a loop because she is pretty particular about how things go, and she wasn't sure about showing up late to school! I have basically been on the run since then, trying to squeeze in keeping the house picked up, keeping the laundry done and kids fed, caring for Brian and his wound, teaching some this week, and oh...sleeping a few hours here and there. I had Brian call to have Denise come on Thursday night so I could teach all day on Friday...it is just so hard to be gone right now, and it feels good to be there...and then I could also finish my Christmas shopping on Friday afternoon and evening. Then by this morning, when I was trying to screw my head back on straight because it was spinning wildly, I told him...call and see if she can come tonight! She arrived around dinnertime and stayed with the boys while I went to the girls' Christmas program.

It was hard to be there without Brian. There is so much that I miss right now. I came home from school shortly before noon today, and grabbed the mail. I read through the Christmas cards...one family is having a new baby (we wanted to have another baby)...one family is going on a trip (we've tried for the past 2 summers to get in another family trip)...and one from Amy Wilhoite's parents (I seem drawn to others who have lost someone close, and to see how they are coping and picking up the pieces...it was good to see that they were still looking forward to celebrating Christ's birth, regardless of their loss this year).

So I started up the steps to see Brian, and he hollered down his normal...well, hello Sweet Thing. I lost it. I cried and cried. I cried because Tye hasn't even gotten to have his first Christmas program; because Rachel was playing her saxophone in her first concert; because I have to arrange care for my husband, as well as my children if I plan to be gone; because it felt as good to leave the house as it did to come home; because sleeping under the Christmas tree this year means the mattress off the hide-a-bed is laying on the kitchen floor, since the tree won't fit in our living room with the hospital bed; because I stacked some things on the hood of Brian's car, and it doesn't even matter because he can't drive and he doesn't even know about it until he reads this, and I didn't even relicense his car; because his students can't even miss him because most of them don't even know him; because...just because. He kept asking me why I was crying, then kept saying...you don't have to have a reason. It seems there is not one lone reason, unless I just say melanoma.

I miss small things...like going to the movie or out to dinner, riding in a car instead of driving it, hearing Brian's garage door come open when he was coming down the road after teaching all day, having him put his arms around me while I'm cooking supper, driving around as a family to look at Christmas lights, going Christmas shopping together just the two of us, instead of me showing him every single thing I bought. I miss him fretting over his hair every morning, or trying to decide whether to tuck his shirt in or not. I miss him getting Tye up for school, and the smell of his cologne as I came down the stairs near his bathroom. I miss the emails, just to see how my day was going. I miss the funny stories about school, and about his friends and coworkers. I miss the conversations about curriculum and middleschoolers. Any talk of things like that just make his sad because he want to be at school so badly. I miss it all...

It is like I'm losing him in stages. Each step inflicts even more pain than before. Hollywood would lead us to believe that beautiful things can happen in a relationship where cancer lurks. They fail to depict the ugly side, the human side, that robs a relationship of so many special moments and changes the normal facets of life into trials and challenges, heartache and misery. I do believe that there is something special in a relationship with cancer. It is the moments of helping the other with things like the bathroom, or crying uncontrollably, or putting up with it all...it is those moments when we both realize what we have is real. It is during those moments that we see that we have upheld our end of the commitment, we are following through with the "in sickness" part of the vows, you know, the ones that most of you who are married thought would mean a few days of the flu, morning sickness when you were pregnant, a headache here and there...you maybe even thought, God forbid, about cancer someday down the road. Well the sickness part has been a major part of our marriage. Our 5 year anniversary is on Jan. 3rd. We were married 27 months when Brian discovered his melanoma again, on April 1, 2005. Now we are on like 33 months of the sickness part, so it has become our lives. I would like to say it doesn't define us, as individuals or as a couple...

But I find my identity lately as a mommy whose husband has cancer, a teacher whose husband has cancer, a friend whose husband has cancer, a daughter and sister whose husband has cancer. It is me, and there is no putting cancer on the shelf anymore because it defines every choice I make and what I do during each moment of the day. I can't leave it off to the side to enjoy something. It is at the forefront of my mind at all times. I work each moment to enjoy what is good, instead of dwelling on it being the last time. It is a constant battle. It is why Brian and I sat and held hands today instead of me picking up the house, and instead of talking about the hard stuff.

I could go on and on. I sometimes wonder why I write on this blog. Maybe it is a way for me to really examine what it is that I'm thinking. Maybe it is a way for me to look back on how I was feeling and what kept me strong. Maybe it is a way for me to give you a glimpse into what really matters in life. The power outage...fixable. A lost job...find a new one. A stain on the carpet...get new, or hire a cleaner, or buy a rug.

Melanoma...only a miracle can fix this.

Holding your family tight...priceless.