St. Groundhog

I started this post about how our trip and everything that is (holy cow!) about to happen just felt like it was just looming.  It felt like this big, oppressive black thing on the horizon that I was just trudging toward.  To be honest, I've had more than a few 'moments' this week.  I've stressed about big things and little (expired licenses, defunct computers losing precious photos, surgery, pumping, fear about the details).  I've had some pity parties where I wondered when whoever was depressing the 'hard button' on my life would let off and switch over to the 'easy button.'  I've been grumpy and moody and it's probably a good thing that my husband's shift change makes him sleep all day because he, I'm sure, wouldn't want to be around the nutty anymore than he already has to. 

Then my Illinoisan family and friends got absolutely buried in snow.  And I worried for them.  And I worried for me because my Daddy and our wonderful Shari are about to head out to be with us and watch the big girls while we're gone and I want them to be safe and get here!  And I thought about winter and bleakness and being buried.  Ironically all that was going on during Groundhog's Day.

Carolyn came home toting an adorable groundhog craft yesterday.  It was a Styrofoam cup colored with grass and dirt colors and a groundhog on a Popsicle stick that poked out of her artistically rendered burrow.  Her teacher asked me if anyone had heard what the groundhog saw and I was glad to report that he had not seen his shadow (perhaps he couldn't get out of his burrow to do so with all the snow piled up, but let's not split hairs here!) and that the official word was 'Spring will be here early!'  And I laughed it off like I normally do when it comes to silly holidays. 

But it all percolated and I thought of everyone who really, really wished for an early spring --especially the lot of you who are buried in the white stuff.  I thought about how I'm *not* buried in white stuff, but I have felt a little buried especially by looming things on the horizon.  I thought about darkness and light as I am wont to do from time to time when I get all thinkative and ruminate too much.

I considered 'six more weeks of winter,' which isn't so long even if the groundhog is wrong this go-around.  I considered Carolyn's birthday and how it would be right after we get back from the surgery.  I considered tulips. 

I thought of something beautiful:  WINTER ENDS. 

IT ENDS!

And trials do too. 

Tomas WILL MEET HIS END!  Soon!!!  Yes, things are finally really happening and that is overwhelming and it's a lot to walk through, but it's TWO WEEKS to walk through after 8 months of waiting and preparing and wondering and worrying and then this leg of the journey, at least, will be over.

Admittedly a good chunk of my wondering anxiousness is about what we'll learn while we're out there/when the results are all back.  What exactly are the implications for our future?  Is this a one-time deal?  Do I have a genetic mutation?  Is it the one that predisposes things to this being cancerous?  Is it one that would suggest that I'll have more of these boogers to contend with?  Do I already have another one lurking?  And even worse--if those things are true, did I give this to my kids?  Or to their kids (a question which flicks through my mind when people say things like, "At least it's YOU going through this and not THEM."  And yes I am glad that this time around it's me, and what's more I'm praying that it won't ever have to be them, but if it does I want us to be as armed as possible to find and fight the sucker early and fast).

BUT, this part will be over.  I'll never again go to the NIH for a study/treatment "for the first time," even if I do have to go back for one reason or another. 

Best of all, at the end of this journey or this leg of it at the very least, I'm coming home and baking a birthday cake for my Carolyn with SIX candles in it.  A month after that we'll go revel in the colors of the joyful daffodils and happy tulips.  The trees will begin to bud and the rain and gray will give way to sunshine and short-sleeved days.  We'll hit the beach more often and I'll dig my toes into some sand. 

The springtime always come.  Winter is just a season and it comes around more than once, but always, always winter ends.  It gives way to flowers and brightness and things that make me want to skip and frolic.  I said to a friend who is in the midst of her own dark winter that when I'm in that place I remind myself that I'm in the middle of my own resurrection story.  The darkness is real.  It feels oppressive and I can't always talk my way out of my feelings (nor should I always do so because I firmly believe that it is ok and vital to call the bad things bad).  Even so, Easter comes and light and rebirth of joy. 

So maybe scary things are looming.  Maybe there is some darkness at this tumor-y time.  I know though that on the other side of this deal I'll lift my face to the sunshine and jump in puddles and tiptoe through tulips and bake birthday cakes for big girls and maybe things won't all be well yet, but it will be spring.  And Tomas....?

Tomas will have left the building!!! 

(Don't let the door hit ya Tumah-boy!)

P.S.  Though I AM looking forward to spring and shifting my focus to that time, I reserve the right to still have my 'moments.' ;)