Progression

So besides being a great venting place this blog gives me a great timeline to look back on what has happened in the past. I decided to do a little looking back the other day and one blog specifically hit a spot with me, you can read my self plug but come back and hear all about how much I've grown. So I am still firmly on team, cancer doesn't get to control my life. I haven't given into the black hole that is trying to consume me, I have lost some sanity into it but not enough to fret over, but I haven't jumped or been pushed all the way in. Cancer is a small part of our lives that most people would never know existed in our home if we didn't share that it was there. This is something I am proud of, I am happy to be able to say my family is (for the most part) a normal, healthy, fun loving family that has to deal with this little thing every now and again. We thrive in spite of it.

The part I wish I could still agree with from that last blog is that my children most definitely will remember this. You can't forget missed birthdays, Christmas's, hell whole months without your father. Their souls know things, and once you have that knowing you can't un-live it. I have resigned myself to this, and I am only a little saddened by it. I have grown. We have grown. Speaking about cancer as openly as we always have scared me, I worried I was saying too much for their little minds to wrap around, but I proceed anyway. Telling them the whole truth scared me, but we did so knowing they would always trust us even if it made them angry/sad/confused when hearing it. We have grown. Sure they still have fear and questions, who wouldn't, but hearing my 8yr old walk into the kitchen after we return from a Dr's appointment and say "So did they get the cancer? Is it gone?" brought me an eerie calm. He felt safe. He knew exactly what was going on, he wasn't acting out to get attention, he was direct and needing reassurance from his parents. I didn't have a pit in stomach as I explained that this was just a planning appointment and that there would be more planning appointment's before they started actually killing cancer. His response let me know I didn't need to be scared, "ok good, can I have an apple? Did you hear about my baseball practice today?" This may not sound like an ideal conversation to be having with an 8 or 6 year old but this is our lives. They have a father who has cancer, they will not be consumed by it, I won't let them. I don't know what kind of men they will become and I have no idea how today's circumstances in their lives will shape them into those men but I can be certain it will shape them. They will have their knowing. So we stick to our guns we honor honesty, we allow room for mistakes, and we trust the unknown together so that someday these men I'm raising will be able to hold their heads high knowing nothing is impossible, living is a gift.