In A Flash

In a flash, it all changes. Today is the perfect example. I woke up feeling somewhat rested, a state I have not really been in for awhile. I don't get concerned about it, because I don't have a schedule to follow, no students and staff to be rested for, no mommy duties, no wifely duties, either, unless I count having a good meal for Joe, my choice! We all know he would eat leftover stew or fettuccine for four nights if necessary. So, there it was, a beautiful early morning. Even the walk with Rex made me extra happy. It was a very wintry looking dawn, even looked white and hazy as if snow had fallen, and the pink glow filtered in all the windows. I was up and at 'em as they say. I was motivated. I was ON. My coffee was tasty and leisurely, my morning took shape and I was baking the cake for my new found friend, cake balls!! I want to deliver some to my close neighbors in thanks for all they have done to help us make it through this year by walking Rex and watching the house on all the trips back and forth to Karen and Michael's AND to celebrate the year anniversary tomorrow of the adoption of this little guy. I even decided that just maybe I could put on one Christmas CD among the others I loaded. I am going to try, Allison, to not let this get to me, I really am. And I was moving right along.

Then it happened, in a flash. A flashback, I guess I would say. I was making the cake ball coating, a nice shade of pink and then a nice shade of green, for reasons known only to me. Beautiful and tasty, these were becoming a masterpiece. All of a sudden the colors blurred, the room spun and the flashback came. The one where Allison had to be carried to the hospital and the one where we knew stage four cancer was moving to her brain. Oh God, how did I not know. I know how I did not know. I have been praying NOT to know. After four years of continual prayer that I would live with the beauty, not the pain, I would live with her laughter, not her cries and her sobs, I would live with the memories of a blessed 21 years. I thought I could do it. And, in many ways, I am. But, in a flash, all that was good and productive and joyous brought me to a place I don't want to go, a place I really don't need to visit. In a flash, there was a flashback. And my soul knew something that I had tried to squelch, I suppose. This date, this third day of December, the day we began to know our daughter would not live with us for much longer. This day, that two parents got on their knees and gave it to God, knowing that there was not a thing we could control. This day, that the pain subsided with an array of drugs and life took a new and twisted turn for our youngest daughter.

In a flash, I was brought back there. The smells. The cries. Me being comforted by a stranger in a bathroom, as I screamed and cried so Joe or Allie wouldn't hear me. Our family gathering around her bedside that night, choosing to hear the "good" news, rather than the "bad"...the good news was a shrinkage in the lung tumor, Praise God, the bad news, well, this is the fastest growing cancer and it is but a centimeter from her brain, causing possible swelling and severe pain. Please God, will we lose her now, or will her body stay, but her mind go? What do you have planned? In a flash, it was all there, and the pain felt like it did at that moment, four years ago.

Why did my soul go there? I was doing so well! Why????

I sat down and prayed like I did that day, and of course my prayers have changed. Well, in some ways. From that day forward, we prayed God's will, we didn't beg, bargain, or make deals. We put our trust in the capable hands of God above. That's what I am doing now. He must have brought me the flashback for a reason. As if my inner self really forgets. I will ask Him all day, as I do everyday, please let me get from point A to B, and be what you desire from this experience. Please help me create the life intended from this devastation. Please help me. I cannot do this alone.

In a flash, it has all changed, as it did then. Life was beautiful for one moment, and in the next, a storm that would shift our lives forever. But we got back on track then, with the help of a spirited young woman, and we will get back on track now. It may not be the track we had planned, or the one others expect of us, but we will be back on track. I cling to the promise, that in a flash, all will be right with the world.