Lost too Soon to Lung Cancer

This week was a heavy one.  I attended the rosary for a former student.  In seventeen years of teaching, I've encountered over a thousand students easily. . .and when I first heard this student was sick, I knew just who she was.  I could picture her.  Usually, I can recognize some former students by sight--names might or might not come to me--but this one?  I knew who she was.  She was the kind of student you thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated.  She was attentive and well mannered.  She was inquisitive and encouraging. She was quiet and conscientious, actively involved on campus and just an overall good girl.

From what I heard and read, the traits she had while in my eighth grade Language Arts class followed her to the high school.  Of course they did!  She was THAT kind of person:  4.5 gpa, cheerleader, hospital volunteer, aspiring surgeon. . .who at 17-years-old was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Tragic.  It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of her suffering and being sick--this girl with such strong work ethic, and pride, such a promising future.  It breaks my heart for her family, and for her friends.  

And it makes me take pause and love on my littles a little longer. Tucking them in at the end of an exhausting day was relished as a gift instead of a chore.  I looked into their eyes and listened when they were talking to me.  We held hands and picked flowers.  We hiked and explored just because we could.  I read aloud a whole chapter a night instead of cutting it short. . .It's amazing how death, especially that of someone so young, can expand your mama heart to look past the drudgery and embrace it all.  It's the realization that another mom a city away is wailing into the night for what used to be normal--and just like that, it's gone. She's gone.

I absolutely positively do not understand how people come through crisis without their faith.  I realized in church Thursday night, as we prayed the rosary aloud in a church filled to capacity, my prayers and my faith in God and the promise of heaven is all that could get me through. Heck, my faith is all I could think of as I walked up the aisle to pay my respect for her family and a constant stream of prayers were uttered silently in my heart for their comfort and healing.  

Lung cancer. Seventeen.  Sandra.  Those words just don't belong together, yet there they are.  And all I can offer is my prayers.  And all I can ask is that you might do the same please.  

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Hamster, Happiness and Everything in Between

Last week was one of a kind, really.  We had to lay Lene's hamster, Skittles, also known by Nessa as Scoots, to rest.  The kids just happened to have minimum day for most of the week so she had a few girls over to celebrate his life.  It was a beautiful service with bible verses read, two eulogies and a most quaint rendition of "Star Spangled Banner."  His final resting place is in grandma and grandpa's backyard alongside some of our other furry friends who have gone before.

The celebration was a simple gathering of friends, lifting each other up on an otherwise dark day.  I love the simplicity of being a kid and the things that make you feel better and more able to move on.  Note to self:  follow their leads.

The weekend was one of rest and family time.  Saturday ended up at the park with one of Jonathan's close friends from school.  It just happened we both arrived at the same time and got to let our kids enjoy each other's company while we visited and shared how faithful God has been in our lives.  I love when that happens:  what a gift!

Some lovely lemons were given to us from a friend's tree so what a perfect opportunity to make fresh squeezed lemonade together!  The top left picture was taken Saturday morning.  I happened to catch Jonathan with one of the neighbor boys, eating sunflower seeds atop our light posts in the front yard.  They were so cute to listen to and watch from afar.  I didn't want to ruin their third and fourth grade cuteness by opening the door to ask for a picture (even though it would have turned out much cuter ).  I was able to kick my feed up and listen to my girl as she belted out practice solo parts for choir.  Her voice, music to my ears regardless of if she gets a part.  Mother/Son night out with my Bubba-love-a  was a gift.  hearing his heart and all the happenings at school, sitting side by side and totally engaged in conversation for a whole meal with NO interruptions. . .priceless!!!

Sunday dinner at my uncle's with some home made Peruvian food was different from our average day but a gift nonetheless.  Being with my siblings and cousins is my idea of fun.  So much so, that we went out with another set of cousins for wine tasting the night before.  That was fun too!  What a great weekend we had!

Lent started and we gave up dessert as a family.  This sacrifice is a lot easier than television as we have done in the past.  I gave up my favorite social media outlet: Instagram.  It was too easy to browse aimlessly throughout my day.  It has only been a week and I feel like this fast will be a good one for me.  I feel it and it makes me realize how I waste time that could be spent truly connecting with my kids, husband, or friends.  I am still slowly sipping on Hands Free Mama.  I'm going through the house and donating forty bags in forty days and am being cautiously optimistic that my distracted, busy life is able to be reigned in.  I will use this Lenten season to focus on the ones who are here in my everyday world that need all of me--my eyes meeting theirs, my ears hearing their hearts, my hands holding theirs, my feet walking beside them to play or do, and all the while relishing this gift that is their childhood and the role I have to play in it.

In the meantime, I'm still stepping out on faith and seeing where God lands me.  Keeping my eyes on Him.  All the time.

Life. Live. Love. Lean.

Back to back funerals made for a busy weekend,  Both services were beautiful and touching in their own ways.  Both experiences brought different thoughts to mind as I was immersed in the legacy these loved ones left behind.  Susie and Jesse, both different because of their life circumstances, and the lives they lost, but both such gifts they left to the land of the living.

Susie was a single mom.  I can't picture her without her daughter beside her.  They were a team through and through to the very end when she may have lost her battle to ALS (Lou Gehring's disease) but she never lost her spirit or the legacy she left behind.  She raised a strong, independent, loving woman just as she was which reminds me that we are our children's greatest role models in life.  We model the good traits as well as some bad. . .speaking only for myself on that one.  Children learn what they live.  And talking to Susie's daughter, listening to her eulogy, I know Suzy will live on.  She died young but she lived well.

Jesse was the patriarch of a large family.  I met him when I was just a kid, when there was a pep in his step and a twinkle in his eyes as he joked with us and treated us as family (even though we were the neighbor kids). Over the course of many years, I saw him at parties and events as our families intertwined and I had the privilege of getting to know one of his sons and his wife well. Being neighbors, they were my refuge if storms were brewing at home.  They were my safe place to land.  When they moved away, the relationship lasted not only because they were my parent's friends, but because they had poured into me early on and I knew where I could go for guidance. They were a part of the village that raised me well.

Jesse's son and wife became the most influential people in my life at what a healthy marriage looked like.  Some of the wisest words I have ever heard about how I deserved to be treated came lovingly from these two... which eventually led me out of a five year tumultuous relationship and into the greatest love story I have ever known: Ernie. It is for this reason, that when we were pregnant with our first, Anjalene--there was no doubt in our mind as to who the best godparents would be for our firstborn.  They were it.  And they are such a blessing to our multiple children.

Yesterday, celebrating Jesse's life, I was reminded of the span his influence has had on multiple people through the decades.  I realized that his family, who have embraced us and many others are a direct reflection of the way he lived life.  And it was a beautiful one.

And having been at the same cemetery my nana is buried at, the one my kids never had the chance to meet this side of heaven. . .we visited her.

And we visited Uncle Ted.

Then I remembered I have to download pictures of papa's ninetieth. . .and I went and visited him since he didn't make it to any of the funerals.  Getting old wreaks havoc on your body sometimes.  Poor papa.

And that was the weekend.  It was long and parts of it were sad, but mostly visiting people we sure don't see enough of and hearing stories of days long gone.  The realization that I'm not getting any younger might have hit hard as I looked around the church two days in a row...I was no longer the youngest generation. Nope.  Time goes on, whether I'm ready or not.

And it's that thought right there that even though Nessa was in bed (not asleep) and the kids were in jammies. . .we hightailed it over to a friend's house when I got this text:

And we sat around a table and talked and laughed and ate delicious tacos while the kids played and Nessa fell asleep on the couch. These type of moments my kids will remember.  Dropping everything and going and being present to the people you're with.

That's what it's all about (mostly).
Life.
Live it.
Love it.
Lean into it and embrace it.