Autumn Blessings

It is a beautiful fall morning here. Perfect sweatshirt and jeans kind of weather. The perfect kind of morning for a walk. So I did.

Before I headed out the door, I asked my super-techy husband to hook me up with some sort of tracking device on my phone. No, not in case I got lost. But rather so I can quit driving all the routes I walk to see how far I've gone. People are starting to think I'm casing their homes. So anyway, he hooked me up with the SportsTracker Pro app on my phone and off I went.

As I walked, I rejoiced in a few other things:

I am thiiiiissss close to my 15 minute mile that I'm gunning for. In fact, according to my new nifty app, I'm only 46 seconds off.

It was really peaceful and quiet. Well, other than the music on my iPod. But I actually turned that off halfway through my walk so I could listen to the wind rustling the leaves. Way cool.

To the person who had a fire going that early. Is there any better smell than that on a cool, autumn morning?

The new songs I bought the other day at iTunes, like this one and this one. I was getting really tired of my same old playlist.

Yeah, I think it's going to be a good day.

Can We Share the Love?

The other day I was walking to lunch when I encountered the giant billboard to the right. That afternoon I went to the grocery store and was greeted with racks and racks of pink paraphernalia. That evening, my husband brought home the pen below. And I went into total Jan Brady mode.

I've been mulling over whether or not to write about this issue for a very long time. I don't want anyone to think I am in any way, shape or form against raising every last penny toward fighting and curing breast cancer. But there's something that's been bugging me about the whole world seemingly gone pink.

The NFL wears pink ribbons on their uniforms. Every year on Mother's Day, Major League Baseball players swing with pink bats and are decked out in pink wherever possible.

But guess what? There are other diseases that afflict women and moms. And the women who suffer from them are every bit as strong and brave and scared as hell. Know what the number one killer of women is?  Heart disease. (And by the way, I love this new PSA by Elizabeth Banks. It's brilliant.) Number two is cancer. Not specifically breast cancer, just cancer.

I lost a friend to leukemia. She fought like hell, but lost her battle and left behind two little boys and a husband who adored her. Was her fight any less worth heralding because it was her blood instead of her breasts that betrayed her? I often wonder if it's because hearts, brains, lungs, uteruses and a whole slew of other body parts aren't as sexy as breasts. What, no "Save the Ovaries" bracelets?

Again, please don't think for a moment that I don't support doing everything we can to annihilate breast cancer. I do. I'm just wondering if maybe we can't somehow share the love for all those fighting--regardless of what disease or illness they happen to have.

Hug Your Kids, Please

This morning, as I listened to the rain falling outside my bedroom window I could feel a lump forming in my chest. It had been raining all night--hard. Alex was scheduled to go on a field trip to a creek to study rocks and such. The permission slip said the trip would go on--rain or shine. It was a field trip right up Alex's alley--lots of investigating, exploring and getting dirty. But this morning I didn't want him to go.

My cell phone beeped to let me know I had a message: Flash Flood Advisory for your area. My heart raced.

I considered calling him in sick, though I'm pretty certain he never would have spoken to me again because of the disappointment and humiliation. At breakfast I snapped at the kids for no good reason other than I was in a state of panic. But they didn't know why, and even if I told them I'm not sure they'd understand. But I'm sure any parent would excuse my losing it over indecisiveness over breakfast if they had read this blog.

It has haunted me ever since I read it. The author's son died in a flash flood just days after she took these pictures. I read it and cried, thinking, "There but for the grace of God, go I...or any parent." I have those same pictures. I know that same type of inquisitive little boy who would be drawn to a creek not knowing how dangerous it could be. That's what was running through my head this morning.

I'm certain my kids thought I was the meanest/crabbiest mom in the world this morning. I'm also certain that they have no idea it was because of how much I love them.

**********
Apparently God heard the pleas of this worried mom, and the field trip was cancelled.

Remembering Forward

This morning when I was walking on the treadmill I looked down at the crowded craft shelves facing me and saw this. How fitting, I thought. But then I started wondering, "What then?" Do I just remember every year, feel sad and then move on? There has to be more.

I've been thinking about that a lot, especially this week as I've been watching what seems like hour after hour of footage from 9/11. It's the same thing I did 10 years ago. And afterward I end up feeling the same--scared, helpless, overwhelmed with grief. But what good does that do?

Earlier this year, I interviewed Krista Tippett from public radio's show "On Being" about the 10th anniversary of 9/11 for St. Anthony Messenger's special issue for the anniversary. During out interview I was struck by something very profound she said. She spoke of the concept of remembering forward, and quoted the White Queen from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

She used the phrase "remembering forward" and said for her in terms of 9/11 that phrase means “remembering for the sake of remembering. What we long for especially with an event like 9/11 is to think about how it changed us, and how we want to move into the future differently because of it.”

I was blown away by how profound that was, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about that concept in my own life as well.

I have MS. There is no changing that. I will never be the same person I used to be. No matter how much I hope for it, pray for it, want it--it won't be. I can get as mad as I want. I can rant and rave--and believe me I do--but that won't heal me. It won't change the past. No, my challenge is to figure out how to move forward, honoring and remembering what was and embracing and navigating what is and will be.

I think today that's a challenge for all of us. 

For Better or Worse

A few weeks ago I went to my neurologist for my six-months-since-I-started-the-shots checkup. As always, Mark went with me. I told him he didn't have to, but he wouldn't hear it. He's been to every one of my appointments since this whole thing started. I can't tell you what it means to me.

As we were sitting in the waiting room, I looked around at the other people in the room. What are their stories? I wondered. I noticed a woman and her husband sitting in the corner. They called her name and she stood up and walked through the door. Her husband stayed seated. When she came back out, she wiped tears from her face. Her husband made no move to comfort her. As she walked out of the office he trailed behind. No hug to console her. No reaching out for her hand. Nothing. I was heartbroken for her.

I reached over and grabbed Mark's hand and leaned my head on his shoulder. He squeezed my hand back.

I can't begin to explain to you all the ways a chronic illness changes a marriage. I understand why some couples don't make it. It's hard and it's ugly. Emotions like frustration, fear and anger pop up at the most inopportune and unpredictable times. The roles get all messed up. Suddenly the kids cry out for dad in the middle of the night instead of mom because they worry about me getting my sleep. Late night talks disappear amidst the fatigue. Too many conversations turn one-sided and filled with tears. Future plans come with an asterisk attached. Resentment can creep in--on both sides.

But there's an upside, too. Those same struggles, raw emotions and uncertainties that can tear you apart can also bond you together in a way that no one outside the two of you can ever understand. I'm blessed. Thanks mostly to Mark, on most days we fall into the latter category. That's certainly not to say that we don't have plenty of the other days. God knows we do. But I like to think no more than the average married couple.

16 years ago when we promised to love each other in sickness and in health we had no idea what we were really saying. For better or for worse, we sure do now.

Sometimes It's The Little Things

In my professional life as a writer and copy editor, I spend a good part of my day focusing on the little things--a misplaced comma, a split infinitive, a run-on sentence. In my everyday life, however, I'm not so good at focusing on the little things. In fact, more often than not, things tend to seem overwhelming and insurmountable--too much laundry, too many commitments, too much worry about too many things, most of which will never happen.

So that's the context in which I headed to the neurologist last week for my six-months-since-I-started-the-shots checkup. I was not looking forward to it. And since I wasn't entirely sure what the purpose of this appointment was, I had allowed my mind to run wild. In fact, when I walked into the office, I fully expected to be escorted straight into the MRI chamber.

A little negative? Well, yeah. That's kind of how I roll normally, and the last six months haven't done much to remedy that. Everything about this damn disease seems big and scary. I've struggled with adjusting to a whole new normal, all the while running alongside life. If one thing has become very clear to me, it's that life really does go on--no break, no slowing down, no take a minute to wrap your head around this.

So sometimes it's a challenge just to remember the little victories. But at last week's appointment three things happened that reminded me to do just that. Those three things were:

* Kudos from my doctor for giving myself the shots.
* Permission to stop injecting in my thighs--my most painful and biggest problem area.
* Hope that within the next few years there will be an oral medication that will take the place of my injections. Fingers crossed.

And in that one-hour appointment, I was once again reminded of the great line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

A Mother-Son Moment

I had the most amazing thing happen to me this week. No, I didn't win the lottery or the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, though that would have been nice. It was even better than both of those things.

You see, when Alex and I were leaving soccer practice the other night and were walking to the car I instinctively reached my hand out for his. As a parent, my natural instinct is to grab for my kids' hands when cars are present. I fully expected him to bristle at the gesture, or pull his hand away. But you know what? He didn't. He grabbed hold of it...willingly...right there...in front of his teammates, the teams practicing after us and all their parents. Did I mention he's 9?

After the initial surprise I wondered if I should let go lest any of the boys see. After all, I'm painfully aware that Alex knows all too well what it feels like to be on the wrong side of a joke or teasing.

But I couldn't let go--his hand, growing ever bigger, tucked in mine. As we walked, Alex looked up at me, discussing practice, all the while tightly gripping my hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a nine-year-old boy to be doing.

I grabbed his hand tighter, knowing that moments like these may soon disappear. And so we walked, hand in hand, mom and son, for all to see.