We Remember

Today Angela and I observed remembrance Day. Not only did we remember those who gave so much to our country in war but we most of all remembered you, the one who gave us so much in life. As well as that, we remembered the trenches. We were there with you in that horrible war that took you away from us. All of us who loved you so much each have memories of that battle that we fought right along side of you. Each of us have scars and wounds that we will have for the rest of our days, yet here we are, we live on but we will never forget.



You can see our reflections as if they have been etched into the stone as if we had become a part of the epitaph. In truth we are. We were such a part of who you were just as you were such a part of who we are. In this way you will always be remembered. You will always be a part of who were are. Time itself can not erase this. You will always be remembered by us and when we are gone and time has removed all of us who remember you, we will be with you.

O God, Our Help In Ages Past
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.

Before the hills in order stood or earth received her frame,
from everlasting thou art God, to endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.

Time like an ever rolling stream bears all its sons away,
they fly forgotten as a dream dies at the op'ning day.

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
be Thou our guard while troubles last and our eternal home.

Amen

Re Visiting Hell

Tuesday and Wednesday I have to accompany Mom for her tests at Neculear Medicine at Royal University Hospital. The whole area of Medical Imaging is a place where John had to go often for testing and for lines to be installed. It is a place of waiting, of tears, of fear and of suffering and a place that I had hoped I would never have to visit again. The thought of it makes me nauseous and apprehensive. I don`t know how I am going to get through this. I just know that I have to. I am going to go and clean the house now and try NOT to think about it. Just don`t think Chris. Don`t think! Life seems to be very cruel to me lately. I wonder why God wants to rub my face in all the pain of the past. Why all this? Why must I have to go and gaze at the field of battle after the war? When will all the horrors end? Life has become a non ending and futile battle against death. There is no furlough in this war or so it seems.

Is There Sadness In Heaven?

Becky, Glen and the grand kids are here. Yay! Hannah is changing ever so fast. I just can't get over the fact that she is walking. She played shy with me Friday when she got here but by this morning she had forgot all about the fact that she had forgot me a little and was back to being grandma's girl. She is such a comical and lively little sweet pea and has me laughing all the time. This morning as she was entertaining me I thought about how much John would have been enjoying her as well as all the grand kids. I was thinking about all that he was missing. Often I am comforted about how being in heaven that nothing sad or painful will ever touch him again but this morning as I laughed with Hannah, it got me thinking if that was really true. The only way that it would be true is if all of his memories were wiped out but then would it be true that if that is what happens to us on the other side, it would diminish who we are? Wouldn't we be less if we forgot about all the ones we loved. Isn't that what this life was all about? So, if he does remember, he must miss those grand babies, his kids, his friends and me. Perhaps it is easier to deal with when you have the God of all comfort right beside you and He can hold you when you are sad. I just have trouble believing that even in heaven that we are protected from all sorrow. I know that the bible says that Jesus will dry all our tears. Up till now I have took that to mean that there will be no tears. Now that I think about it, there will be tears but Jesus himself will wipe them. That does comfort me. John, we miss you too, all of us. I hope you are not too sad too often.

Five Months

It is five months today. There is not really much to say except that I miss John just as much as last month and the month before and the month before and the month before and the month before....I am sad and I wish he could come home.

Mom is on the same ward in the hospital that John was in when he was first diagnosed. If I look across the hall I can see his room. I try not to look. He was admitted just about this time three years ago. That is when the long goodbye began.

Just Another Day

I think I had better avoid Facebook for the next few days. I have a lot of friends and family that are regulars and due to Valentine's day most of them are putting up photos and writing nice things about each other. I don't begrudge them and it is nice to see that they love, appreciate and not take each other for granted. This is as things should be, I know, yet it is killing me. It is like rubbing salt into a wound. I thought that I would be alright with Valentines Day because I told myself it really is only a day after all, just another day out of the three hundred and sixty five days of the year. The last few days, I have been struggling. The grief worm seems to be boring new holes in my heart.

Valentine

Draw the curtains, shut out the light

There is nobody for me to love tonight

No cuddles

No sweet nothings

Not a wink or a smile if you get my drift

No slap on the bottom or squeeze of the thigh

No footsies

No smooches

How I long to gaze into you eyes

How I long to kiss you face one more time

People say I carry you in my heart

and with that be I have to be happy

Happy

Happy

Valentine

Sometimes Just Breathing

I am a fighter and a survivor. I am always looking for answers, always striving, wanting to thrive. I get up in the morning and look for ways to go on. I look for the positive. I look for the blessings and count them but in spite of all of my efforts and in spite of my strong will a lot of times all I can do is keep breathing and it simply has to be enough because that is all I can do.

Becky said it well. This song was by Sarah Schieber when she lost her husband during a marathon. From this I know that others feel the same way and that it is alright. Today I was going to paint the bathroom. I lost all motivation and drive. Today I am just going to breath.

Crying

Today my brother-in-law came and pulled the old bathtub out. Next week I will have the new Whirlpool jet tub that John ordered installed. I decided to go ahead with this. I know that he would want me too.

In November all his brothers came and put the siding on his garage. He would have loved seeing that project completed. All his tools sit where he laid them.

The thing is, where he is, he is not missing this stuff. I just miss him. All these things bring the reality home.

Sometimes the dog and I watch the garage door, hoping that reality would change and he would come through that door humming a tune like he always did. If I close my eyes tight enough I can almost see him.

I tell God that this is just too hard.

Dear John

I wish you a happy birthday. Thinking of you today it has dawned on me that it is impossible for you to not have a happy birthday. Nothing bad will ever touch you again. The sun will never be too hot. The nights will never be too long. Death has no more sting. There is no pain and no shame. As C.S. Lewis said "School is over and the holidays have begun" I wish you a happy birthday anyway.

I thought you would also like to know, I have ate all the cashews out of the mixed nuts. I am now working on the almonds.

I'm Watching You

This is the song that John's brother David wrote and sang at the memorial service. He has now recorded it. It is beautiful. It does make me cry every time I hear it. I am not at the place, like the lyrics say that I won't cry so much but laugh instead. It almost seems that as the days go by, I cry more and more.

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John used to say all the time: "I love you more. I love you today, tomorrow and forever."

Sad

Today is just too sad of a day for me to write much of anything. I can hardly believe it has been four weeks. It feels like eternity and at the same time feels like yesterday. I feel like I should be able to do better than this short post. John deserves better than this. All I can do today is cry.

How Are You Doing?

I am alright. That is how I answer. Usually people wait a few seconds, waiting for me to perhaps elaborate. At this point I usually just say: "Really, I am alright." I just don't know what to say. How in the world could I possibly explain my emotional world at this moment. I have difficulty finding words for myself. Some times I feel nothing. Sometimes I feel hollow and empty and tired. Sometimes I feels like my soul is being torn to shreds.

It is the little things that are the hardest. Things like coming to the realization that I now own all the pens in the house, that I don't have to sneak my hubbies good pens into my purse. Oh how I miss being caught in the act. How I miss him saying: "Beasely! It says AgPro right on the pen!"
It is hard to come to the realization that all the cans of oysters and brown beans in the cupboards will in all probability still be there years from now unless I donate them to the food bank. It is crying over the new bath loofa that he only got to use once or holding the shirt he last wore and checking the pockets and finding a candy that he will never eat. But the hardest thing of all is seeing the grief in the eyes of our children and thinking of all the things that he will miss with the grandchildren that he loved ever so much and who loved him ever so much. It is knowing that I will never hear him tell me how much he loves me again. It is knowing that I will not have the fun of figuring out what present to surprise him with at Christmas and knowing that I never could surprise him anyway and loving him for it and laughing about it. It is knowing that I will never just be able sit and stare lovey dovey and drink in his eyes. It is a thousand times a thousand small things.

I watched television tonight for the first time in weeks. For a couple of hours I let that take me away from reality and tried to pretend that things are normal. Now the television is off. My daughter and her kidlets have gone back to her home. My son has gone out for coffee with friends and the house is quiet. This was a time that John and I used to enjoy. We would smile at each other and sigh....ahhh....peace. An hour later we would be missing everybody. Now I have to get used to the fact that I don't have somebody around that knows me so well that they can read my mind, somebody that can tell me things without even one word spoken but just by expression, somebody that was a part of my soul.

Arghh, Blah, Sigh and Hrumph!

If you are feeling down in the dumps, maybe you want to reconsider reading my post today. I went to bed depressed and worried. My mood when I woke up has not improved at all. Usually when I wake up, I have a few minutes of peaceful feelings, as I slip out of that beautiful cocoon that lays somewhere between slumber and wakefulness. I woke up this morning with a knot in my stomach.

My mom fell again last night. She fell trying to get into her bed. This is the fifth time she has fallen since December. The paramedics had to come and help her up again. When she falls she is not physically capable to get up on her own. I am not physically capable on my own to help her up. The good news is that again angels watched over her and she did not injure herself. I am worried that one of these days she is going to hurt herself bad. My brother and I are going through all the anxiety of coming to terms with the fact that she probably should be in a home. This just makes me want to cry. I worry that I will not be able to be there for her to the degree that I would like to be.

Yesterday we got word that a good friend of ours lost his battle with cancer. He was diagnosed in March. It was a very aggressive cancer. He never got to leave the hospital. He never got to go home even one more time. We saw him the weekend before last. He was weak as a newborn babe, his body ravaged by the cancer within yet his spirit was full of grace. He told us that he did not think that he was going to make it. He said his goodbyes and tried to comfort us all. I am saddened by my loss of a friend and my heart goes out to his family. I know that they are going to have some hard days and weeks and months and years ahead of them. I wonder what the future of myself and of my children and grand children looks like. I shoot down those thoughts as quick as they try to enter my conscience like the ugly monsters that they are.

I woke up thinking about the two transplants that John has ahead of him. I just seems so overwhelming to me this morning. I am always on edge waiting for the next curve ball to be thrown and I wonder each time that one comes, will I be able to catch it? Our transplant oncologist wants to put John on Thalidomide as a maintenance drug between the transplant here and the transplant in Seattle. Our provincial drug plan does not cover it. It is very expensive. VERY VERY VERY From what I could gather from on line research, it could cost up to four thousand dollars a month. We were given application forms to receive compassionate free drugs from the pharmaceutical company that supplies the drug. Again we have to fill out forms divulging all our personal financial information. It feels so invasive. They even want to know how much is in our checking accounts. I worry that the little that we have managed to stash for the foreseen and unforeseen emergencies will disqualify us. I worry that they will decide that perhaps we should sell our home or that our car is too fancy. This is the company that as soon as they learned that the drug was valuable in the treatment of Multiple Myeloma raised the cost of the drug 800% over the last five years or so. I just wonder how much compassion that we can expect from them.



I woke up to this. The outside world matches my spirit this morning. Bleak, dismal, arghh, blah, hrumph, sigh...... Maybe if I wash some walls, I will cheer up but not before I tackle that pesky application form, write a check to pay revenue Canada what I owe them, go to the post office and mail it and go get the new stickers for our licence plates before I forget and drive illegally and oh ya, find the parking ticket that John got last week and write a check for that too! I feel like going back to bed and staying there for the whole day and pretending that everything is just ducky. As you can see, sometimes I have trouble remembering that God is still on his throne and has everything under control.

On the up side of things. I had a wonderful Mothers Day weekend wich reminds me, PHONE MOM!

Last Day In Seattle

Everything is pretty much packed up and loaded into the car. There are still a few things left. I hope it will all fit but am not sure at this point. We are going home with a bit more than we left with. I am going to try to bring most of the groceries home with us. We will need them. I just bought them hoping not to have to go out shopping while John was receiving the bulk of his treatment.

We decided to leave tomorrow morning. There is no reason to hang out around here and I just want to be home. Invisible Mo is coming over this evening and we are going to watch some Corner Gas. I hope she has a Canadian sense of humor? We shall see.

We Are Going Home

We will be leaving on Monday morning. They have decided that at this time not to proceed with the transplant. Yesterday it was a go. We picked up David from the clipper. We went to our first appointment in the morning. We got called away from that appointment to go and see Dr. M. Apparently the myeloma has been busy and now there is 30% cancer in his bone marrow. This level is too high for the transplant to be effective. They have decided to send him home for a few rounds of Velcade and dex. Why did it take them this long to figure this out? I do not know! They have had these test results for over a week. Why did not Dr. V. do a bone marrow biopsy last August when he should have? Ask him. If we would have been sent in the half year paremeter that they had told us about, I don't think that the counts would have been so high. If they had bothered to give him the minamal follow up by doing the bone marrow biopsy at the 3 month intervals that they said they were going to do, we would have caught this and he could have had some treatment then the transplant would have been a go. Hopefully the Velcade and dex combo will bring those levels down and in a couple of months come back for another try. I won't even try to say how we feelm right now. The nurse at the clicic told us to be tough. I wonder how long I can be tough. I don't want to be tough.

September 11

It seems like yesterday. Today at work, when I had to write the date down, my hand paused in the air above the page and I found the memories still so fresh. I remember the dream that I had had prior to 9-11 and the moment that I realized that I had seen this event in my dream. I am still haunted by it. I remember driving to work and hearing about the first plane hitting. I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was certain that it was a terrorist attack. In my dream I had thought that it was a missile that had ripped through the building and shattered it. I dreamed of the confusion and of people not knowing where to go and what to do. I dreamed about what it was like in the stairwells. I dreamed of people trying to remove the floor and escape that way. I remember when I got to work and expressed this how everybody thought I was nuts. We turned the radio on. Within minutes the second plane hit. I watched as shock and sorrow and fear began to consume them. I remember the groups of people gathered around the televisions throughout the hospital. Nobody really wanted to watch but were compelled to watch. It felt that not to watch would mean that all those souls had to suffer alone. We saw the buildings fall. I remember the silence of the day. People hardly spoke but the tears in their eyes and the droop of their shoulders said all that needed to be said at the time. We will never forget.