Cancer Scars

At our Thanksgiving dinner my dad gave the blessing and as he tends to do on these occasions, got all verklempt as he spoke about a warrior and his scars who stood with us that night. He was talking about Phil of course.  


My dad is a Lutheran preachers son through and through and waxes eloquent quiet regularly and on many a topic.  He earned the nickname Plato from his children and having grown up in his home I can attest that it was not always a term of endearment.  I can only speak for myself, but there were times when I would have opted for a spanking rather than a long drawn out lecture from him, my logic dictating that a spanking would hurt much less and be over more quickly.  Pete, as he is known to his friends, or Quentin as his mother named him, is a retired physician in radiation therapy and knows what he speaks of when he calls Phil a warrior.  


In his little preamble to the dinner prayer he talked of the elephant in the room - referring I suppose to the guests with their curiosities about the skinny guy with the huge scar across his forehead.  He explained about the cancer and the fungal infection and he talked of Phil's eye that had gone silent.  He championed Phil's strength and fight that he's exhibited all along the way.  And then my dad talked about me.


I had on this beautiful new outfit and I'd done my hair and make up.  I was looking really nice and put together for a change.  But my dad knows better.  He had my number like loving good Dad's do.   He said, "Sally looks great tonight but she's got scars too."  Wow, right between the eyes.  He didn't really say much else, he didn't have to.  That was enough to convey the truth about our situation.  Cancer is taking a toll on me, our family, our life.  We all have scars, Bennett and Olivia included.  Some are visible to the eye and some are harder to see.  


And here's the truth of it that I don't write about very often.  Our cancer experience has been a particularly difficult and devastating experience because of how aggressive it came on, how intensely it has to be fought against and how complicated it has been to battle.  Our dream to move to California and begin a new life here was radically altered almost the moment we got here.  All the promises we made to our children have had to be postponed or altered in some way.  There have been losses upon losses and changes upon changes.  Little for them has been very secure for some time now.  They essentially left everything they knew in Washington to arrive here to the uncertainty of their father's cancer.  And they have more or less been relying on the certainty of their mother.   Just yesterday Olivia asked me why she doesn't have a special friend just for her like she did in Washington.  How do I answer that?  It's partly because all my energies are spent battling and just getting through.  It's because I don't have much time for any real women friends here that would allow her to have friendships with their daughters like we did in Washington.  And Bennett was just beginning to shift that maternal bond over to Phil when he got sick.  What horrible timing for a young boy of 9.  Cancer is a cruel and consuming disease that is robbing all of us of life.   


There are still many reasons to rejoice and I do find gratitude in every day.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and Dad's prayer was as touching as it was tearful.  But I am tired and I know this hiatus in Phil's treatment is only contributing to the sense of fatigue and awareness of how long this journey will be.  I know that my redeemer lives and yet I am human and I am unsatisfied with this stage of my life.  I want more for my children. I want to know my kids are going to be OK and to know how this is going to turn out for them.  I'm finding waiting on the Lord very hard to do.  But what else is there?