Yes, I know I'm supposed to be thankful on "Thursday" for my blog...and I was thankful yesterday, but I was also busy and didn't get a moment to sit at the computer: loving this cool summer weather with the kiddos.
Anyway, I think it happened on purpose, because today I have something to be really thankful for.
Two months and a few days ago I sat in the hospital room snuggling my sweet baby boy. The visitors had left, Nick had gone home to take care of the kids and I was left with my sweet boy and my iPad for the night. We hunkered down, we snuggled, we nursed and we perused facebook. As a mom I have a love/hate relationship with facebook. I often feel like it draws me away from my kids, but it also is my window to the adult world when I can't get out into it for real. It connects me with real people and life beyond my home. I love life in my home, but it's important to enter the outside world on occasion.
So, on that night I held my newborn son I posted pictures and read comments from friends sharing in my joy. Then, it happened. Around 4 or 5 in the morning I read an odd post about a friend having trouble sleeping, being nervous, and dancing in the rain for relief. I was curious so I clicked on her name and went to her page. This is a friend I haven't spoken to in years, a friend...a classmate from high school. She was starting chemo in the morning. She was preparing to go to the hospital to have this horrible medicine put in her body to kill a cancer that was already there. I was sitting in a hospital room celebrating and snuggling one of the happiest moments of my life...it didn't seem fair. How could I be holding this sweet new life, while she was about to fight for her own.
I had known before she had cancer, I had written words of encouragement, and even said a prayer or 2 for her, but it didn't hit home...it wasn't "real" to me.
In that moment in that dark hospital room...it was real, it could be me. I promised to myself and to her (on her facebook page) that each time I sat down to nurse this little boy I would pray for her. Think of her. and fight along with her.
For two months around the clock...every 2 hours throughout the day and a few times at night I have said a prayer for strength, for comfort, for friends to surround her in real life (and not just on facebook).
Well, 2 months later she has completed chemo. She has made it through this dark time in life, she celebrated with a glass of wine and on facebook said to join her in a toast. So I did. I poured a glass of wine and was thankful that she has made it through this chapter. But I realize that it's only a chapter in her book, and that things don't just go back to "normal" now that chemo is done. So, I'll continue to pray, but on this day I'll be thankful that she's done...
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