precious time

It is amazing how a little drop of hope can sustain you.  It is like the most beautiful flower in your garden...the one you never expected....the seed roots, it grows, it gets stronger each day....it blooms...it opens wide.  You feel happy and warm and content when you look at it.....hope is the same.  It dries my tears, it warms my heart, and it stills my soul.....it helps me sleep at night.  I hold tight to it, my grasp never weakens.  I believe. 

I don't live in a fantasy world, though. I do not have giant rose-colored glasses on. I am not sticking my fingers in my ears, louding saying, "La la la la la I can't hear you!" (a current specialty of my child!) I do not stick my head in the sand. Cold, hard reality is a constant companion.  Hope just makes its company easier to bear. Stage 4 cancer is still stage 4 cancer.  It's, as Pookie said last night, a death sentence.  It is.  That's cold, hard reality.  The hope is in the time......anything is better than that wretched 9 months.  I believe with all of my heart and soul that it is not right.  We have more time.  I feel it. Is it 20 years?  Probably not.  I know this, though it does not stop me praying for it.  Is it 10 years? God, I hope so.  Is it 5 years? God, I hope so.  Is it 2 years? God, I hope so....and more. Time, precious time....you don't know how precious it is, you really don't, until someone puts an expiration date on a person you love. 

To try not thinking about it - to stop the near-constant presence of tears, of despair; the white-hot anger that burns my belly; the pain that brings me to my knees - I plan. I first discovered this skill when we lost Adam 6 years ago.  I did not know what to do, only that I could not bear my Uncle Charlie's grief.  It is a grief I have never forgotten - that of a father, losing his only child, the son he raised alone.  So, I cooked.  I planned.  Who is bringing what? What should we have? Where are we going after the funeral? Who is picking Kristie up at the airport? Who is staying where? My aunt, mother, cousins, brothers - we made it happen. Then, on that bitter cold February day, I sobbed through the funeral, but pulled it together and got busy for the reception after. ( I did the same for his burial in the spring...though I do recall making Uncle Charlie laugh through his tears there.)  I did the same when Suzanne and Kelly lost sweet baby Cora.  I needed to do something, I needed to help -so, I planned. It helped that, as her lifelong friend, people asked me what to do, what they needed, etc.  I had purpose!  Oh, how it helped me get through those stark days.  I truly hope it helped them, too. 

Both times, though, I noticed how lost I felt when it was all said and done....that business of death.  The arrangements and services and people and food and attention.  People went home. Dishes were washed. Nothing left to do. I was bereft.  My purpose served.  Grief came for me. 

Now here I am - planning again.  Flying blind, by the seat of my pants, this time.  This is not what I know how to do.....I can cook, I can bake, I can coordinate a potluck like no one's business.  This is all foreign, which helps more. I have to figure it out AND plan.  I am not stupid - I know this is escapism.  I know it, and yet I still welcome it.  Because without it, I am staring that awful 9 months in the face.  That 9 months that is not true. 

So, I will keep planning.  I will plan and love and laugh and work and smell that glorious flower in the garden.  The one called hope.....and let its warmth spread through me.  I know grief will come for me eventually (it drops in unannounced for visits now), but it's not time yet.  It's just not time.