Quote of the Day: “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” William Arthur Ward
Out of the mouth of babes. Don’t you love it when you discover something for the first time. The other night, as we drove home from Park City, Maggie and I sat together in the back seat of the car. The moon has been amazing lately- it was almost full, large and yellow with lines of clouds covering it. Maggie took one look and said: “I didn’t know clouds lived at night.”
My stepmom, Linda, sent me this e-mail recently. I wrote about Erma Bombeck and her gift for laughter in one of my blogs and Barbara Farrelly was a friend of Erma’s. “I recently received an email from Barbara Farrelly, Mikelle’s mother in law. She wrote to tell me that she had been read
ing your blog when she came across your comments on Erma Bombeck. Erma was also from Dayton, Ohio and a personal friend of Barbara’s. Barbara mentioned to Erma how unfair she thought cancer was. Erma said, “Barb, unfair is intentional; cancer is random.” Barbara also said that what she learned from her is that humor doesn’t always produce laughter. It produces peace.” Then Linda went on to say: “I hope we can all find some peace in the holidays this season. We love you and hope you never lose that warrior spirit within.”
My sister, Taylor, will have final surgery this week. She too carries the BRCA 1 gene and has been so proactive in her approach to never get cancer. I applaud her bravery and hope this surgery recovery is super speedy! My final surgery date will be on Thursday, December 29. This will be breast reconstructive surgery and should be easier than the last two surgeries. I asked the plastic surgeon about recovery time and he said “You’ll be down for about 5 days”. I said: “No, how soon will I be able to run again?” He said in about 4-5 weeks. I’m sure my mouth dropped open. I was sure he would say 2 weeks. He counseled me about having incisions that need to heal and also because I have had radiation, it’s very important that I allow my body to heal, and not encourage new scar tissue. Maybe he doesn’t know that I’m a quick healer! The real question of course is, how big to go. We talked about it and being a runner and tennis player, I value smaller breasts. Who wants to carry around more? Seriously? He said he would go a “scosh” bigger, which means “a hair less than a smidgen”. I had never heard that word, and immediately thought of my blog. I asked him how he spelled that and he said: “I don’t know, it’s a made-up word.” So there you have it, I will be a scounch bigger. Anyway, it will be an appropriate end to this year of surgery. I don’t know if luck or events occur in the same calendar year, but I would like to believe they do and that 2012 will bring many wonderful events and much happiness!
Last night, Joe and I went to a performance of The Forgotten Carols with Scott and Patti Clements. At the end, Michael McLean sat at the piano and talked to the audience and what at first seemed like a salespitch turned into an amazing experience. He had the entire audience singing “We can be together forever someday“, he even suggested that we all link arms or touch shoes as we sang along. He mentioned that we all have people to sing this to or for whether they are living or have passed on. I found it incredibly comforting and of course, thought of Lynne, and what a great gift that would be to be together again, forever. It makes death’s finality seem less so and in this world of skepticism and disbelief in anything of the spirit, I find it very comforting. We finished the evening singing Silent Night or Stille Nacht, which is probably the most sacred of all Christmas songs. We sang a cappella and it was beautiful!
Alex running on trail in Park City. He graduates from college tomorrow!
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