blessings

This weekend, amid coughs and stuffy noses, we noted that spring is arriving.  We happily filled seed trays with potting soil and the earliest spring crops, stopped to listen and play in the running snow melt and delighted in the return of the pussy willow catkins.  After subzero weather last week, it felt like a turning point.  In more ways than one...

Andy's scans were clean and his visit at Mayo brought the best news we could hope for.  There were no recommendations for treatment at this point, only scans every 4 months to monitor and make sure the cancer has not returned or spread.  The stats are in his favor and he is getting stronger every day. The relief was huge, our hearts full of gratitude.

Still we left Rochester feeling somehow jubilant but also on the sharp edge of despair.  Unsettled. When we spoke about it later we realized that we had both noted the "cancer floor" waiting room full of people, most of whom, would certainly not walk out of there feeling a sense of relief.   And we were both remembering Ken, who we met in the "prep" room before the scans last week, who was our age with stage 4 lung and liver cancer, who had already undergone 4 rounds of chemo since November, who the doctors were telling, "it's about quality of life now".

I guess what I'm saying is that it's hard to feel total elation, even when they tell you that your outlook is favorable, once you've joined the ranks of those with a cancer diagnosis.  Sadness for those who aren't as fortunate as you weighs heavy.  Realization that even though the news was positive, you weren't given a "clean bill of health", they can't tell you the cancer won't return, and this path is still before you.

Celebration wasn't on our minds.  Just boundless thanksgiving and a renewed sense of determination to make space for healing in every day.  To make each moment as full of what matters as possible.

Don't get me wrong.  There were lots of smiles, sighs of releasing anxiety, hugging and laughing around here this weekend.  We aren't spending much time contemplating possible not-so-positive outcomes.  It's just that when the world of cancer comes knocking on your homestead door it opens a reality you never dreamed of (or at least tried not to).  And to be real, and present, and honest with it all, somehow helps.

So onward now.  Forward to days of lengthening sunlight, bursting buds and the song of the redwing blackbird.  We are full of spring's renewal.

And we are pausing now and again and again to take note of each delight, each pleasure and each moment of sorrow.  If there are blessings here we will find them.