Seasons

I wanted to share a gift I received just before leaving for MDA. I am not one to come up with analogies or parables or any of those types of things, so when it happens, I know it’s a gift from above.

It was time to take another step in telling the kids a little more how serious this is. They have seen me battle cancer three times and we made it positive, “easy” and fun. Overall it was a good experience in their eyes, just a blip on the radar of life. So explaining that this is harder, is well, harder.

So Alana was home alone this evening and I just started pouring it out. As best as I can remember, I said:

"Alana, what are the four seasons? Spring, summer winter, fall. They go round and round and they continue throughout our entire lives. Some we like. Some don’t. Some years some seasons seem to go on for a long time, and in other seasons we barely seem to have had one. Like, 'We barely had a spring! or 'That was the longest summer ever!' Well, this is how our lives are going to be. Right now we are in our first season. We don’t really like it, kind of like winter! It’s going to be a hard season. Mom will be sick a lot, but it is just that, a season. Then we might go into a season like spring! Where everything is doing well, mom is feeling a lot better! Maybe its the season we choose to do a lot of traveling. Then we might have another season. It may be another scary one, or maybe one where we have new emotions and new drugs. It may get hard again. And then we might have another good season."

I’m drawing this out as I talk.

I start circling it all over and over and look at her and tell her this is our life. Forever. These seasons will come and go just like spring, summer, fall and winter. They never end. She shook her head, pretty sure she said something amazing, and smiled her cute smile.

Where did that come from, not from me. I looked at Skip fought the tears. I was happy now with what she knew.

Madison I knew needed the same story. We sat down with her to explain she (and us) had been expempted from the Science Fair Project. (I cannot tell you the love I have for this teacher. She is my DRMS angel) We gave her her new options and she looked at us like, "I don't understand. Why?"

So we go out to shop for her dress and I give her the same speech. I go a little more into detail of course. Then she asks, "What stage is it?" I tell her. "How much worse is this than the last times you had it." I've promised to be completely honest with her through this journey so I honestly responded. It's a lot worse. Maybe 5 times worse. I have a LOT of cancer in my body and it's going to take a big fight to make it go away. But, I feel like we are going to get a miracle and I truly believe we are going to beat this.

She didn't say too much. She knew a little more now and it was good. We had an awesome night shopping together, laughing and pushing me around Kohls. It's our thing, shopping there is just no nonsense. It's our happy mommy-daughter place always. 

Since that talk, she has changed. Her willingness to help has grown, her smile is softer and filled with more compassion. I think she gets it that this is different. I even saw her let her sister go first the other day and almost fell out of the chair. It's the little things. My kids don't need to worry about the scary details. We leave that stuff for the adults to handle.

Just thought I would share. Never know who might be able to benefit from our journey. It's not easy telling your kids. It's not easy answering the questions. But I guarantee if you pray for the perfect time and the perfect words, they will be give to you. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7