Goodbye 2023!

 One last thought as December brings the year to a close...

And I like the thought behind this meme.  In general, it's refreshing to declutter and delete things that don't add value to your life... but... then there's the world of Cancer.

Not so simple.  If we could just hit the delete button and start over.  Remove the cancer and all the ensuing battles, the heartache and the pain.  

As we all know, all too well, there is no Delete button. Sigh... So, where do we go on this last day of December?  Closing the chapter on 2023 and heading straight into the unknown of 2024.  A blank book... an unwritten story... 

I have decided to add another word to the list.

De-voted.  Like being devoted to the things and people that matter.  The passions and the dreams that drive our decisions.

Devoting ourselves to living our lives well... De-spite the baggage of a cancer diagnosis.

Join me in bidding 2023 adieu and facing 2024 with a De-votion to all the things that matter most.

That will lead to a live de-finitely well lived!

My Love, Always,

Jane

 

Finding Joy...

Learning the lesson every single day...

Trusting that His Mercies are New every Morning,

May you be graced to find joy in your story today,

Love, Always,

       Jane

Beating Cancer without Chemo!

Is that even possible?  I mean, Chemotherapy is the mainstay of our fight...Right??

But what if someone beat cancer without Chemo?  Really, truly, stopped cancer in its tracks... without the horrific side-effects of Chemotherapy treatment.  Wouldn't you want to know??!

Yes!  Yes!!  I'd be telling everyone I knew and loved, and even those I haven't met yet!

So, if you are fighting cancer, or have a loved one facing this daunting challenge, then listen up!  Chris Wark is sharing his inspiring story in a FREE 10-part video series for all of us:

The SQUARE ONE Healing Cancer Coaching Program

It begins Tomorrow, August 14th.  It is FREE.  And it is so very Powerful!

We met Chris a while back.  His story is nothing short of amazing...

Diagnosed with Stage III Colon cancer at the age of 26.  He chose the path less traveled, and against the strong advice of his doctors, friends and even some family, he walked away from Chemotherapy and conventional treatments, choosing to heal his cancer naturally...

In this 10-part video series Chris will educate, encourage and empower all of us to research our options and take charge of our medical decisions.

Today, over 14 years later, Chris is cancer free, alive and well, and sharing how he and many others have healed their bodies with nutrition and natural therapies.

Could this be for you?

Listen to some of the reviews:

"Square One has been an invaluable resource for so much information pertaining to cancer treatments, testing, nutrition, lifestyle, support, and more!! Chris's amazing personal story and experiences provide a unique platform to educate and empower those on their healing journey."
                                                   ~ Elaine

"After DCIS Breast Cancer diagnosis in October 2016, Chris Wark's Square One got me on the right track to make significant changes in my life.  My initial searching on the internet provided information, too much information and confusion.  Square One provides guidance/information on food, supplements, and treatment options while empowering me to be in control of my life and my body.  Thank you Chris.  I encourage anyone cancer or any other illness to listen with an open mind and take advantage of the resources found in Square One."
                                                    ~ Maribeth

Whether you are choosing a Conventional, Alternative or "Combination of Both" approach to your diagnosis, Chris shares information in an easy to understand format, allowing each of us to examine the choices before us and make the best decision for our unique fight.

It costs nothing but your time... It is free... all you need to do is sign up at the Square One link.

You've got nothing to lose and so much to gain! Sharing Hope and Encouragement today... Get empowered in the Cancer Fight!

So what are you waiting for?  Head on over to Square One and check it out!

Graced to be Walking Together, One Step at a Time...

Love, Always,
Jane

The Truth Behind the Cancer Story

If you are here... reading this blog post, then I am guessing that cancer has touched your life in some way.

Perhaps you are scared.  And angry.  And overwhelmed.

And you just want someone to tell you what to do... how to make the nightmare go away...

We've been there.

Our doctors told us that Chemotherapy and Radiation were what we needed to do.  It was the only plan they had.

And mom trusted them.  But their plan failed.

I can only wish that a website like The Truth About Cancer would have been available to us 6 years ago.  Perhaps we would have been able to choose another plan.  A plan to cure the cancer that was eating up her body... A plan to survive the unsurvivable and triumph over the nightmare.

I may not be a conspiracy theorist, but I am 100% passionate about finding a cure for the uncurable.

A Cure for Cancer.  In our lifetime.  So that mothers and fathers and sons and daughters can choose to live another day well, raising their hands high in hallelujah for the precious gift of sharing love together for years to come.

We have that option today.  Integrated cancer therapy.  Choosing what works the best for each cancer case.

For some it will be chemotherapy, for others it may be hyperthermia heat therapy or perhaps targeted immunotherapy.

Today there are choices.  And anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer deserves to know what those choices are and to be given the right to choose the best plan of treatment for themselves.

If I can do anything through this 31 Day Challenge, it will be to encourage you to research hard, to ask tough questions and to never give up...

A great place to start is at The Truth About Cancer website I mentioned above.  It's founder, Ty Bollinger, is an ardent healthcare advocate.  After losing his mother and father to cancer as well as several other family members, he began a quest to learn all he possibly could about alternative cancer treatments and the medical industry.  He refused to accept the notion that chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, with their very poor track record, were the most effective treatments available for cancer patients. 

Ty and his team traveled the country and sat down with the foremost doctors, researchers, experts and survivors to discover their proven methods for preventing and treating cancer.  Out of this experience, his unprecedented docu-series was born...

The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest

This was the series that I watched several months ago... the series that began to speak Hope to a broken heart.  The series that I am longing to share with you.

As Ty shares early on, one of the most remarkable discoveries he made on his quest is that the vast majority of all diseases (including cancer) can be easily prevented and even cured without drugs or surgery.

That is Hope.  Spoken loud and clear.

For every cancer patient.  For every family member.  For every loved one fighting this battle.

It is our rallying cry.  Preventing and Curing Cancer.  In our lifetime.

So as we move forward on this journey, we will be digging in deep to uncover the truths about cancer treatments, traditional, alternative, and integrated ... as well as sharing the stories of survivors who are offering hope of life lived well and free of cancer.

Graced to be journeying along this road together,

Always,
         Jane

T.H.I.N.K.

Yesterday we visited with Job in the trenches of the battle...

It's a hard grace, this fight.  And sometimes our loved ones make it even harder... Job's 3 friends surely must have thought they were being helpful... but their words only served to make things worse.

When a loved one is struck with the piercing arrows of cancer, the last thing we want to do is to add to their misery. 

Here is a quick rule of thumb when trying to decide what to say to a cancer warrior...

Before you speak, T.H.I.N.K...

 

T - Is it true?

 

H - Is it Helpful and Honest?

 

I - Is it Inspiring?

 

N - Is it Necessary?

 

K - Is it Kind?

Letting words of Grace find a way to lift each hurting heart...

 

 

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It's all a Matter of Life and Death...

I need your touch,

and I need my space.

 

I don't believe that I'm overstating this one.  Mom's cancer journey was truly one of so many mountain-top highs and such devastating and heart-breaking lows. 

 

Just as those hugs were a critical factor in her mental and emotional health as she fought the cancer beast... there was something even more critical in her fight, something that actually became a matter of life and death more than once in her journey.

 

And it is this she would share... I need my space.  Or some plain-speak here, Respect My Fragile Health.   Stay away if you are sick, might be sick or even think you were around someone who was sick.  My immune system is gone.  All my fight has been directed at the cancer, there is nothing left over to battle the common cold or argue with your sniffles.

 

And she said this with love.  And a sad smile.  Because it hurt her to hold people at an arm's length and tell them not to come.  She longed to be living life to the full, healthy and whole.  Not hiding in her house, unable to fight off even a simple infection.

 

The chemotherapy treatments were the bad guy here.  While they did an admiral job holding the cancer at bay for a time, they also knocked her immune system out, decimating her white blood cells and leaving her wide open to every nasty bug on the block... 

 

2 instances in particular stand out as we look back at her journey.  The first occurred half-way thru the valley road and brought her out on the mountain top... the second took her straight to heaven's doors... 

 

That first infection occurred about 7 months into mom's pancreatic cancer journey, when she went in for a simple dental cleaning.  But of course, with pancreatic cancer, nothing is ever simple.  She never even thought to tell the dental hygienist about the chemo treatments...critical mistake.  Within a few weeks, she had a complete systemic infection brought on by a teeny-weeny little bacteria that lives in your mouth.  The cleaning had opened a small channel for the bacteria to travel into her bloodstream and what resulted was one very sick momma. 

 

She was surrounded by a host of amazing doctors and medical staff who pulled her wily-nily through that dark valley.  She spent a month in the hospital, many of those days so ill she couldn't lift her head off the pillow.  To say we were distraught wouldn't even come close.  When we were told a simple antibiotic at the time of her dental cleaning could have spared mom all this heartache we shook her heads in disbelief,  it was beyond comprehension...

 

Take note of mom's nightmare and never underestimate the power of those teeny-weeny little bacteria when you have had chemo treatments.

 

Because, you never know when they will win the fight.  It is truly a matter of life and death.

 

And this would be our greatest heartache... to know we might have been able to prevent the opportunistic infection that took mom's life 12 months into her pancreatic cancer journey.  We will never know for sure where she picked up the virulent strain of pneumonia...

 

... might it have been at our Thanksgiving gathering?  Heart-breaking to think it might have been a hug from one she loved so deeply?  Or the quick trip to the store where she insisted on tagging along?  Could that lethal germ have lingered on a shopping cart handle?  Or simply hung in the air, waiting for her frail body to breath it in?

 

We have called it The Perfect Storm.  It wrecks my heart to relive those 7 days... 

 

But it is the Banner we must raise for all who follow behind.  Respect the Space.  Know the despicable power of even one invisible bacteria to the health of the cancer warrior.  It is truly a matter of Life and Death and it is one of the most important things mom would share from her battlefield experience. 

 

Yes, she needs our hugs... But more than that, she needs her space... Give it with Love.

 

  

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The Critical Hug Factor

I need your touch...

 

 

Mom was a hugger.  She loved to wrap us up tight whenever she saw us... the first thing when we got home, always before we left, when we were sad, when we were rejoicing, and sometimes for simply no reason at all except just because she could... 

 

Her hugs were warm, filled with love and life.  They could lift our spirits, change our attitudes and make us laugh.  It was a prescription for a good day, those hugs from mom.

 

And maybe she was on to something... Research has shown just how vital a hug can be.  

 

It seems that hugs can boost our immune system, give a sense of security and increase our serotonin levels to improve our moods.  Hugs help relax our muscles, release tension in our bodies and alleviate pain by increasing circulation into our soft tissue.

 

There's a bounty of good in a generous hug!

 

And when mom received her cancer diagnosis, those hugs became a critical part of her "treatment" plan.

 

Early on in the journey, we realized that her visitors fell into two different categories.  The real, honest-to-goodness huggers and the very real, afraid to touch her pat-ters (the ones who gave a little pat on her shoulder kind of pat-ters).

 

We decided that the pat-ters might be afraid the cancer was contagious.  Which is SO NOT TRUE... but maybe they didn't know that?!

 

Just in case you missed that... PANCREATIC CANCER IS NOT CONTAGIOUS!

 

(Ok, I feel better after getting that message out there)

 

Anyway, after one particularly grueling day of appointments, we arrived home to find a friend bringing her a meal... so very appreciated.  Mom was tired and worn out, but happily reached out to give a hug... the sweet friend immediately began to pat mom on the shoulder, forestalling the hug and said her goodbyes... 

 

That moment grieved mom for days... it was another win for the cancer.  And let me say here, not all cancer warriors feel the same way about hugs.  You may not want to go around hugging every cancer patient you see... that might be creepy.  Just saying... but if you are walking this cancer road with someone you love, don't be afraid to hug tight and close and often.  Hugs are powerful things.

 

For mom, a hug meant so much more than hello or goodbye, or thank you for a meal.

 

It was a connection, a physical affirmation she was important, she was loved, that she could do this. 

 

A lift for her spirits, an encouragement without words...so simple an act, such profound effects.

 

On this Cancer Journey,

Never Forget that a Hug is a Powerful Thing!

 

 

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Make Cancer Stop...

I need you to make cancer stop,
nd I will love you crazy for trying so hard.

"It is so hard to know how to support someone going through the war against cancer. What we really want to do is make it all stop. Make the cancer go away. Provide total healing. When we can’t do that, we feel helpless and oftentimes end up in a state of paralysis, doing nothing."

                                   ~ Nicole J. Phillips

This beautiful quote so very well describes the feelings of thousands walking this cancer road with their loved one.  We want nothing more than to make it all go away...

We offer advice, madly research the best treatments.  Suggest different diets, new supplements.  Study alternative fixes.  Storm the internet.  Grab at straws.  Plead with the Almighty.  

And in the end, no matter how we have begged and bargained and agonized over it, we are simply incapable of making this cancer stop.  Mom knew that from the beginning.  

To each one who rallied around her with gifts of advice or suggestions of treatments, she accepted the tear-stained offers of love as a promise.  A promise that she never fought alone.  She knew the power of that intense yearning for her healing would stop her cancer in a heartbeat if that were humanly possible.

And for this, she was forever grateful.

Our promise, as we continue this fight in her honor, is to one day find a way to Make Cancer Stop...it is our deepest desire...

...for every mother, or father, or sister, or brother, friend or child facing this devastating diagnosis...

It is all Grace to join in the fight that will End Cancer in our lifetime, so no one will ever have to agonize on this cancer road, ever again...


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Grace to the Hurting

"But here on this mountain, God-of-the-Angel-Armies
    will throw a feast for all the people of the world,
A feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines,
    a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts.
And here on this mountain,

God will banish the pall of doom hanging over all peoples,
The shadow of doom darkening all nations.
    Yes, he’ll banish death forever.
And God will wipe the tears from every face.
    He’ll remove every sign of disgrace
From his people, wherever they are.
    Yes! God says so!"

                                                 ~ Isaiah 25:6-8, The Message 

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Seriously...

I need to laugh.

 

Cancer is serious business.  And terminal cancer is deadly serious.

 

If the human spirit was single-faceted, then that would be the end.  Seriously.  Game over.

 

There would surely be nothing to feel hopeful about... unless we were created to crave joy and beauty and laughter... and hope.

 

Yes, thanking Grace it is so.  For it is this life-giving hope that keeps the cancer warrior on her feet moving forward even in the midst of such a deadly serious prognosis. 

 

Right after mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and began treatment, she had the first of many medical complications... an occluded or plugged stent.  It involved fever, severe pain, a trip to the hospital and surgery to replace the offending stent between her gall bladder and pancreas...

 

The following week I picked up mom and took her to a check-up with her oncologist to discuss her treatment plan... not a place where you see many smiles, especially with a terminal cancer diagnosis...see note above, cancer is serious business ya'll.

 

So, there we were, sitting in the exam room waiting for the doctor.  Mom started telling me a story on dad.  It seems that while dad was with her in the hospital she overheard him explain the stent procedure to a friend on the phone... too tired to correct him, she got tickled when he told the friend that her bladder was plugged and they had to get it open.  In pure, clueless-dad fashion, he covered the phone with his hand and asked her if she could pee yet.  (Don't feel bad if this isn't funny... we're weird like that!)  But the bladder he was talking about had nothing to do with the gall bladder that was the subject of mom's pain and stent replacement.  For a good description of the stent procedure, check here. 

 

In telling the story to me, she got to laughing again and it tickled me to hear her snort... And there we were, laughing goofy, when the doctor knocked and opened the door... to say he was a little discomfited was an understatement.  I don't think he regularly found terminal cancer patients laughing in his exam room.

 

All's well regardless... it felt so good to laugh with mom again.   To feel the smiles bubble up real and true.  She was still the same mom we always loved to laugh with, even with a side of cancer. 

 

Mom would be the first to remind you that cancer can take you down a dark road if you let it.  And no, we did not laugh our way through the journey.  We cried a'plenty.

 

But in her best gift to us, mom showed us how to live life well and graceful.  She gave us hope, and joy, and yes, laughter...

 

 

 

 

  Seriously!

 

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Walking a Cat on a Leash...

Chemo Brain is like that.

And Matthew Mewhorter captures it perfectly in his recent post "Under a Spell."

It's a joy to share Matt's beautifully unique way of art journaling his cancer journey...and bringing his cheeky brand of humor into the cancer fray...

 

Have you ever tried to walk a cat on a leash?

If so, you might be able to understand what it's like to have "chemo-brain".

Chemo-brain has got to sound like such a wishy-washy excuse for disorganization, procrastination or chronic forgetfulness. Before being diagnosed with cancer and having chemotherapy treatment, I would normally excuse an absent-minded mistake as a "blonde moment" because -hardy har- I'm a platinum blonde. I would get a chuckle and typically disarm any outrage over my error.

Now my absent-minded moments are so frequent that I can no longer pass it off humorously without coming off like a complete lunatic.  I regularly forget appointments, names, and important obligations. "Just write it down," they tell me. Good suggestion, but I do write it down and will lose what I wrote, or forget to check what I wrote altogether.

It's like I'm under a spell, trying to walk a cat down the street while the fat bastard just lays down and lets me drag him behind me.

To have chemo brain is to have a mind that drags behind you all day long.

It tells you that you're thinking too hard on things that were once so simple.

Your speech drags.

You stare off into space.

You tire so easily.

You overwhelm so easily.

You feel dumb.

You get embarrassed.

You burst into tears for seemingly no reason.

And yet...

You realize how cool and patient people can be, when you're just open and honest about the effects of treatment. You discover the goodness of people that you are still accepted despite your absent-mindedness reaching super-annoying heights. You realize that you're allowed to have a mind like a fat, legless cat on a leash. Shoot, you deserve a break. You're kicking cancer's ass, and it's a crazy exhausting to do so.

You're tired, go to sleep.

Stop blogging this, Matt. That's right, I'm talking to you now. 

Stop writing...it's 10:30 at night. You worked all day and you're rambling now.

Go to bed...

I said, go to bed...

Why are you still writing? Stop it...

Rest.

Thank you Matt for sharing your heart and for lifting us up out of the trenches to 'discover the goodness of people.'  It shines light into the dark and speaks hope into the night.

You are one crazy-smart Cancer Owl... Blessings and Grace!  Jane 


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What do you do when someone you love has been diagnosed with cancer...

If you're Jen Hatmaker, you write a Cancer Manifesto...

Her offbeat sense of humor and honest-to-goodness-this-is-life approach just struck a chord for me.  I don't even know her, but I love her to pieces and am praying blessings over her family...

If you are in the midst of your own cancer journey or are loving someone who is walking this road, then perhaps her words will resonate deep with you too... enjoy, cry, cheer... cuz cancer, you may have just met your match...


On June 2, 2015, Jen writes...

"We continue to be incredibly grateful for your concern and follow up on my mom's cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in November and moved pretty quickly into surgery and radiation. She now has regular scans, so we live in three-month increments praying for the all-clear each time. We are in Cancer Maintenance.

I've mentioned before that as adult children, when one of your parents gets sick, everyone reverts to their standard roles. You hop into your lane and peddle furiously along familiar paths because you don't have time to innovate; adrenaline only leaves room for you to do what you already know how to do.

In our case, I am the oldest child, so I jumped into procedures and systems obviously. (The middle children constantly monitor everyone's feelings, and the babies are free to get clingy and fall apart. How nice for them.) As the oldest, I immediately started planning to keep this thing on the rails. We couldn't go willy-nilly into Cancer Mode without defining the mode. What was our mode? We needed a mode. (No one ever voted me "Most Fun" in high school.)

So six months ago, five hours before my mom's surgery, some of us prayed, some assembled snacks, some set up a care calendar. I wrote an essay. (I am a first-born, controlling, career writer; I had no alternative.) I penned the following manifesto and sent it to our family. I wonder if it might be helpful to you? I believe these guidelines apply to any family in crisis and those who love them. Obviously, cursing is allowed when your person gets sick, so feel free to use our swears in addition to our rules. (And FYI, readers: the following is simply our family tone, so even if you are less...salty...the approach works across all family brands.)

The King Family Cancer Manifesto

Well, I told cancer our family was off limits, but cancer is an a**hole. I already have a death plan for Mom and Dad: they are supposed to die peacefully in their sleep forty years from now on the same night holding hands.

We need to get our cancer rules together here on the front end. Mom goes in for surgery in five hours. Obviously, we hope the surgery will be the end of this, and Mom will kick cancer’s tail and we’ll get back to our important issues like Lindsay’s grilled pimento cheese recipe for her new menu and…whatever it is Dad does at the ranch (is it hay? Alfalfa? Are the calves born in the spring or fall? It’s all so unclear).

Amy H gave me this idea. It goes like this:

• We have concentric rings around Mom’s cancer, and she gets to be in the bulls-eye, because well, she has the actual cancer.
• The second ring is Dad, because he said “in sickness and in health” 45 years ago and so now he is stuck.
• Us four kids are third, because we are the fruit of their loins (gross).
• The people we married or “are hanging out with” (side-eye to Drew) or birthed are in the next ring, because Mom is their Grana or mother-in-law or “mom of the guy she is hanging out with” (Drew, land the plane, we like her so much).
• The fourth ring includes all our best friends. The real ones. The ones we ask to help us move and crap like that. The ones who walk into our houses without knocking.
• The outer ring includes our work friends and church friends and neighbors who like or even love us, and they will get swept into our cancer vortex by proximity.
• Everyone else in the world is outside of those rings.

The way this works is that stress can always go out but never in. Mom is in the bulls-eye, so she can say and do and feel whatever she wants at all times. She gets to act straight crazy if she's in the mood, but at no time does she have to deal with our psychosis or anyone else’s. No other rings can dump their worry, fear, or burdens on Mom. She is the Cancer Queen and zero drama can reach her on the throne. She can be calm and measured like she normally is, or she can be irrational and hysterical. It doesn’t matter. In the bulls-eye, crazy can go out but no crazy can come in. We have to be strong and steady at all times for Mom. I don’t know how we’ll manage as this is not our skill set. Maybe there is a YouTube tutorial.

Dad is next. He can’t give Mom any fuss ever, but he can give it to anyone outside his ring. We have to absorb Dad’s junk too. We know him: this won’t look like fear or panic, it will mostly just sound like a lot of words. Dad gets to say all the words in all the world and everyone outside his ring has to listen patiently, because the only person who gets to shut him down ever is Mom. Gird your loins.

The family is next, so none of our crazy can go in toward Mom or Dad, but it can absolutely go out to the other rings. Our outer people have to deal with us without so much as a raised eyebrow. If we want to completely overreact and flail into a quagmire of tortured exaggeration (we are not a stoic people), we get to do that and our outer people will let us. If we decide on a bad day that our doctor is a quackadoo with a degree off the internet, they should confirm our theory and google replacement doctors. Our best friends are the recipients of all melodrama, inflated enthusiasm, and emotional outbursts. They can give us exactly zero of those things. Outer rings can only send in the good. Absolutely no crazy. If an Outer Ring Person consistently makes an Inner Ring Person panic by, for example, telling lots and lots of dead people stories, his or her ring career is over. Crazy-senders get booted from the rings immediately. We police the rings like Martin Riggs.
 

Mom, we have no idea what the doc will find today, but let me tell you this: if it is worse than we think and you are looking at mastectomies, feel free to get a nice new set of knockers when this is over. It will be your silver lining. You’ll look like a 16-year-old cheerleader. While you are under that knife, we can add on any other treatments you want BECAUSE YOU HAD CANCER AND NOW YOU GET ANYTHING YOU WANT FOREVER.

If people outside our rings want to help, they can pray. Remember? We believe in God! How lucky for us. And for Mom. You know she has filled, what, a million pages with her Scripture and prayer journaling every morning for forever? Mom doesn’t do a lot of talky-talking about her God feelings (that is Dad’s territory), but she is all filled up with the goods. We know how Dad prays, because he constantly makes us bawl by emailing his prayers for us. We know God loves Mom (the prayer journals alone are a straight ticket to heaven, plus all those times she bailed us out of jail) and if we are not one of His favorite families, then God has no taste at all. He’s got us. I know it.

So no matter what comes later today and next week and this whole next year, we can handle this. We have each other and we have God and we have good rings. We can always default to inappropriate humor, and fortunately, Mom’s cancer is in her boobs, so that gives us instant material to work with. We’ll all do what we do: Dad will talk about it, I will make rules, Lindsay will wail, Cortney will diagnose, Drew will gripe at the sisters, and Mom will be the calm Cancer Queen in the middle of this crazy family she created, probably acting like the sanest one of all.

We can do this.

**********************

Six months on this side of the manifesto, I can tell you that the ring system WORKS. If the rings are maintained well, the bulls-eye person gets to sit in a soothing emotional spa of calm and serenity and love. Oh sure, her people have plenty of fear and crazy, but they only send it outward, never inward, so she is shielded. Good outer rings constantly strengthen the inner rings. For my mom, this looked like a stocked refrigerator for weeks, an usually calm family, gifts for every single day of radiation from her staff, a cleaned house, rotating hand-holders on radiation days at the oncology office, anointing her with oil and prayer, baskets of lotion, tons of emails and texts.

For us in the innermost rings, this looked like a billion calls checking in on us, friends meeting us at the doctor's office, a steady supply of patient listeners, well-timed distractions, invites for fun stuff, treatment strategy partners, encouragement galore, helpful research, laughter. Our people absorbed all our fears so we were free to absorb Mom's and Dad's. Our rings served us so well.

God was and still is so ever present, so ever near, so ever good. And we are taking our turn as outer rings for other folks right now, because that is how the community thing works. When someone staffs the outer rings of others, she need not worry when her day in the bulls-eye comes. She'll be surrounded by good people who love her and know the rules:

All the fear and worry can go out, and only strength and goodness can come in.  

If you are in crisis with your people right now, you have all my love and solidarity. Life is hard, but God and people are good. Set up your rings, explain the out-but-not-in Crazy Policy, and remember that God loves you and is for you. I am for you too, and your pain is always safe here. Consider me an outer ring: I will gladly, patiently absorb it all for you here today.

**Quick update: My friend "Amy H" (mentioned above) who gave me this idea read it from another article! I'm sure she mentioned that but the details completely fail me. This was six months ago and we were in Cancer Crisis. All I can remember is her great idea about "stress out, never in." I would never borrow a concept without crediting the original author intentionally (that has happened to me before and it blows). I am super glad to link you to this one she'd read in the LA Times by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman. I hope the "ring wisdom" is useful to so many of us. May it be a comfort and guide when our people are sick and we are all struggling."

 

 

Pushing Back the Dark

... Because Somebody needs the Light you have!

Whatever you do,

just don't lose heart...

Keep on Pushing Back the Dark!

Mystery Keys and Piles of Ammo... The Surprising Journey of Grief

These last weeks have found us walking a wobbly path...

Grieving and Mourning often take hard turns, and to our surprise, during the heartache of losing Leroy's dad, we have had more than a few occasions to bubble up in hilarious laughter.   Is it only our family?!

Tears have spilled and visits to funeral homes have sat heavy, then... in the midst of family and shared meals and loud stories and babies messy, humor finds a crack and lightens our load.

Leroy's mom, Millie, made the decision to sell the family home within days of Don's passing.  It has been on her heart to do for ages... she is happy and content with their "apartment" in the nursing home and has no desire at all to move back home.  In typical Millie-fashion, she met her challenge head on, came to a decision and set her focus on the things that needed to get done.  And that list of things to get done was extensive to say the least...

Find an auctioneer for the estate.

Find a realtor for the house.

Begin the arduous task of sorting through years of precious keepsakes and other assorted oddities!

Yes, yes, many have asked, why have we waited so long to start cleaning and sorting thru the house?   Don and Millie have been in the nursing home for near a year...

It is true, but... here, reasonable logic bows to emotions deep and the heartbeat of love... Grandpa Don has struggled long and hard with letting go...   this has been their family home, for decades.  It is where family has gathered around to enjoy Thanksgiving Turkey and trimmings, celebrated Christmas joys, shared endless pots of coffee, said goodbye to loved ones, watched the babies play and grow up visiting Grandma and Grandpa, lived life, made memories... all within these four walls.

It is no less hard for us to pack up a lifetime of memories for them.   Even though the irony is not lost on us... Don no longer needs any of the treasures he stored and kept safe.  His treasure is safe in heaven.  How often we forget?  And hold on to meaningless treasure here on this side of Glory?  But that is perhaps a lesson for another day...

For these past days have been a blur of activity from dawn to long past dusk.

We have found an auctioneer... Love him to pieces already.  He gets the memories.  Knows these are family keepsakes.  He will be taking inventory of the house in the coming weeks for an auction later this fall.

And so, our friendly auctioneer gave us the job of removing all personal and private "treasures" from the house, unless we wanted them to go to auction, which, no, we don't... Enter an abundance of empty boxes and family worker-bees.

We ate donuts... made a plan... divided up... each took a room...

The Goal:  find and gather up all pictures, keepsakes and anything else Grandma might deem valuable (which meant bring it into the kitchen where Grandma sat comfortable and let her decide...this is where the plan de-railed regularly and the hilarious tripped us up often)

Within hours of implementing the plan, we realized the enormity of the task... The boxes could hardly contain the abundance of memories...

We started making piles in various rooms.

Old Photos and Pictures began to appear with alarming speed... in boxes and bags, found in dressers and desks, layered in frames and hidden in books.

 

 

Precious images, yellowed with age, a glimpse of our family from years long gone...

 

The genealogist in me just melted at this sudden connection to the past!

And of course, Grandma Millie reminisced with joy, hours flew by as we gathered to listen...

 

 

A favorite... Grandpa Don as a young man with his parents and sisters..

 

 

 

And Grandpa and Grandma courting...

 

Love...Love...Love these...

 

So easily distracted we were... but back to business... and we began to notice that there was loose change everywhere, along with keys that seemed to multiply like bunnies... in the china hutch, in cereal bowls, dumped in kitchen drawers and hanging from pegs in the utility room...

 

 

So many keys... we asked?  Grandma shrugged. 

 

One for the front door, one for the back... the car in the garage, the truck in the shop...

 

The others for doors long forgotten.  Important once, now a mystery, gathering dust in dark corners.  But we keep them anyway.  A story of our lives.  Keys to unlock gates along the journey... our homes, a diary, that first car, an office... keys to our heart... keys to our memory... keys that keep us safe... keys that bind us together... all marking the passage of time...

 

And the loose change?  It all went into the brown jug and those pennies and nickels and dimes filled fast, weighing heavy.  We all took bets, wrote our guesses down on slips of paper and at the bank we laughed at our lack of faith.   A grand total of $99.07.  Much more than our bravest guess... We stopped at the Steak n Shake to celebrate, Grandma ordering a Large Mocha Chocolate Shake.  It was the first time she had ever ordered a large...

 

The sorting continued as friends and family filtered in and out... Leroy and his brother found a stash of ammunition in a back bedroom and brought it out to add to the growing heaps scattered over the dining room table... later a sweet granddaughter rolled her eyes upon seeing the ammo and said only in our family would we have piles of photos, old keys and ammo mingled amongst the cookies and coffee...  We laughed, because, well, because, seriously, true... Who does that?

 

Ammo was safely stored, we polished off the cookies, smiled over coffee cups and knew somehow it would be alright...

Perhaps it is the gift Solomon offered in Ecclesiastes, his advice for this road we all travel...

"To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

 

A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance..."

                    Eccl. 3:1-4

 

 

Sometimes we found ourselves weeping and laughing in the same breath... Grandpa Don would have been amused.

Keys to unlocking this hard, hard journey of grief...

The laughing easier when we're together.

Grandma and the grandkids...

 

Grandma and the family...

 

Grandma and her boys...

 

She does not journey alone...

 

For in everything there is a season,

God giving and taking and holding us close...

 

The Gift of Tears, The Grace of Laughter,

It's where we are tonight...

 

 

The Mighty Acorn...

I want to be more patient...and I want it right now!

We might laugh, but it's just really hard to wait for the virtue of patience to be matured in us.  Something, or someone, always seems to be "trying our patience."  True? 

Mothers, is it not a hard thing sometimes to listen to Sponge Bob Squarepants for the thirteenth time, or to play Chutes and Ladders...over and over again?  Or referee one more squabble between siblings... Or how about potty training trips to the bathroom every 30 minutes...just to try?

Patience.  We need it every day, all day, for all the little things that make us wait...  Even when we love those little ones to pieces.  It. Takes. Patience.

And so it is with Caregiving.  How many times have we struggled with Patience?

Patience as we wait for the doctor to call back.

Patience as we wait for the lab test results.

Patience as we file yet another insurance claim.

Patience as we run interference with nosy, rude or otherwise irritating neighbors.

Patience as we figure out the plethora of new medicines, dosages and timing.

Patience as we keep encouraging our loved one through the ravages of chemo and radiation.

Patience as we clean the bathroom floor...again.

Patience as we gently wait for our loved one to decide a course of treatment when we think we alone know what's best.

Patience as we make 5 different dishes and turn the kitchen into a shambles trying to tempt them to eat something, anything.

Patience as the disease devastates and we can no longer deny the journeys end, nor change one painful minute of it.

Patience as our anger at the unfairness erupts, overflowing bitter.

Patience as we learn to let go and trust a Sovereign God when all around is grief and sorrow.

Patience.

How I have struggled with Patience.

Our pastor shared the story of the farmer who went to town to buy seed for his fields.  On the way home, 2 seeds fell out of his sack onto fertile soil.  Within days, one of the seeds sprouted and began growing, but not the other.  As the days passed, the one seed grew and grew, sprouting leaves and curling tendrils, but not the other.  Soon the one seed had large leaves and tiny yellow blossoms, the other had not even cracked open its shell.  Finally, the one seed matured and produced beautiful squash, which the farmer harvested and gladly shared with his family.  The other seed remained in the ground, alone and forgotten.

Over time, the forgotten seed softened and ripened, splitting the tough outer coat and began its journey toward the sun.  Over days and months and years, the seed grew and grew, but so very, very slowly.  After many years, the farmer was finally able to walk under its broad and mighty limbs, and relish the cool shade the tree provided and marvel at all the birds and animals that called its lush canopy home.  He gathered his family under the comforting shelter and together they admired the beauty and faith of the Mighty Oak Tree.

Patience.

Would that I could remember the patience of that little acorn.  For Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow... It takes time.  It takes endurance.  It takes faith. 

It takes Patience.

Never forget that the work we do as Caregivers so often travels the course of the little acorn.  Perhaps we feel alone in the burden, or forgotten by others.  Maybe the work seems never-ending with no possible good in sight.

Let Grace weave Patience into the story.  Each small task you do for the sake of your loved one bears much fruit as you trust in His Hand to bless the offering.   It is a sacrificial ministry born out of love.  We may not see the answer we pray for in this life, but know that, as with the little acorn, God promises to see us through until we stand in Faith before Him .  He will see that our work accomplishes His purposes, offering Hope, Encouragement and Comfort to all gathered under the shelter of our Love and Care.

"And let us not be weary in well doing:

for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

                                                                ~ Galatians 6:9

 

You, my friend, are a Mighty Acorn... just wait and see what Patience and Faith grow you into!

Grace...Simplified

This is Grace according to my favorite childhood Sunday School teacher...

 

A simple acrostic that makes beautiful sense to me.

 

The depths of His Riches for every need... supplied at the Hand of Christ in the most sacrificial gift of all time...for even me, wretched at my best.

 

Grace...it is such a glorious concept.  It just feels, well, so decidedly gracious... to imagine that God in His infinite Holiness would offer His Riches...to me?  And to you...

 

... a bow of the head and an open heart...accepting His lavish love when we know we deserve it the least.  Grace.  Riches Unexpected. A Savior's compelling Love... Beautiful Unmerited Favor.

 

And in my life, the Graces began even before I took my first breath...

 

 

 

This is mom and dad on their wedding day...

 

I arrived 5 months later.  And no, I wasn't premature...

 

 

Just one happy, little baby...grin...

 

50 years ago, the stigma of an unwed pregnancy sent shock waves through the community. Mom was urged to "take care" of it... Whispers in her ear that no one would need to know... it's the best thing to do... Horrified gasps that you can't possibly be thinking of having it...

 

My heart stutters to even type those words... Did they even know it was me growing in there?  A happy, little baby?  A somebody that so very much wanted to smile, to love, to live?

 

Mom and Dad chose to ignore the naysayers and got married.  They endured the "talk," the shaking heads and wagging tongues.  They nurtured their little "mistake" and I have lived in Happy Grace every moment since...

 

For me, Grace is personal.  Every breath I breathe is a lavish gift of uncomparable richness... It is Grace extended.  To me.  Not because of anything I had done.  Or because of some adorable little smile.  I was given Grace the minute Mom and Dad said Yes... to me... because they loved me...  (and please know my heart on this... I know there are many, many who are scarred by decisions made, of lives hollowed and hurt in the abortion battle, and I would never, ever want to add one moment of pain to your tender spirit.  Praying for Grace to be real this day to anguished hearts, and wanting you so much to know that there is restoration ahead...God's Riches for you)    

Grace. I am humbled completely to even imagine how good God is to those who believe.   I have been blessed to experience even the tiniest bit of this Glorious Grace and it makes me hunger for more...  That Beautiful Grace Gift that allows a soul to truly live...

And, what, may you ask, does this have to do with the Caregiver?!  Thank goodness you asked... and thank goodness we have 29 more days in this Challenge!  Because we're just getting started...

"Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus."

                                ~ Ephesians 2:7

There is so much Grace to come...