Beneath the Fig

 It is still so hard to believe that this is our life.  Today was probably the most normal-feeling day I've had since all of this began.  Getting ready to start school and having back to school in-services all feels so familiar and rhythmic.  And I'm taking great comfort in knowing that predictability is around the corner.   But also...  Having the knowledge that this diagnosis is happening in the background - forgetting in moments of life and then remembering about a hundred times a day makes the normal days feel almost harder than the abnormal ones.   As I wrap up today - I've gone to work, been a mom, cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, made bathtime happen, had a shower and started to wind down.  This is my normal rhythm.  My normal way of moving about my days.  But the early evening in preparation for another normal day tomorrow has allowed me a little too much time to reflect.  Too much time to remember just how norm...

*Trigger warning* This post is about love and loss.  It may cause tears.  Please don't feel obligated to continue if you don't feel like crying.  Also, if you're not a crier, don't feel bad if you don't cry.  The world needs all kinds <3 --- “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” 1 Conrinthians 13:7 Ours is a love story. The way Casey tells it, the night we met, he was sitting at a table at Baker's Street Pub when a gust of wind blew open the door and in I came with the cold January air.  All of the lights dimmed except the one that followed me like a spotlight all the way up to his table.  He couldn't believe it as he watched me come to his table and start talking to the friends that were there with him.  And then ... our eyes met and, lo, and behold, I sat down next to him. And the rest is history.   The way I tell it is that I walked into Baker's Street and went up to his tab...

 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."   Jeremiah 29:11 This wasn't our plan but it is The Plan.  This statement came to my mind when I was texting with a friend a few days ago.   Our plan was to be Casey and Ashley into old age.  Our plan was to move to the country, dig a pond, fish every day, can things, grow a huge garden, maybe buy a horse some day.  Our plan was to celebrate our 20th anniversary in October in Sedona.   Now, I don't even know what the plan is later today.  Life has taken a hard left turn, and I think I'm just holding on for dear life.   For. Dear. Life.   Life, dear life.   Life is dear, isn't it?  We wake up every day to the sun and coffee and traffic and work and people and kids and grocery shopping and bedtime routines, and then we go to bed.  And then we wake up and do it al...

 "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." John 1:48 Cancer .  My husband, 44 years old today, has C ancer.    My husband, father of my 12 year old and 6 year old sons, has cancer. Cancer? We just sold our home.  The home we have lived in for 10 years.  The home where all of our memories as a family of four dwell.  The home near our friends and in our familiar neighborhood.  We just sold our home.  Our goal was to move to my husband's family property - his happy place - about an hour away and build a dream home.  Nothing big.  In fact, we were going to downsize.  Just something of our own, that we got to design and clear the land for with our own hands.   We just finished selling and donating all of our furniture, boxing up all of our small stuff, and moving it into storage except the necessities which went with us into a temporary house on the property.  We were about a week or two...