At Least....

How many times a day, or a lifetime, do I find myself saying..."at least"...or have heard it from my children, my family, my friends, and even my neighbors. At Least. It holds so much in those two little words. More, now. More, forever. And what do those words really say? Do they say, this is a blessing in comparison to what could have been, this is a favor, this is the so called up side?! Do they tell me I am left with a better choice, a stronger outcome, a more pleasing palette? Hmmmm....why contemplate it, why even think about it? I don't know, I think about a lot of things that I never would have before. I don't dwell, it just comes to me, in conversations, in writings, in reading, in reflection, in remembering.

Again, a conversation with my sweet sister, prompted us talking about our circumstances. I love how we can be honest. I can ask her if she has ever thought of something, and she will respond, or she can ask me, and I can be honest, and while we might tread lightly for a minute because we are both so fragile and don't want to even begin to assume we know what the other one is walking through, we ultimately get to the core. Like last night. We talked about our losses, a bit, and the way our immediate families have been redefined, the ones that were families of four, now shifting to three. Yes, shifting. We are not used to it. I don't know if we ever will be...We talked about the joy of those who we DO have life to share with, now. And I think we were both envisioning one another's life, her going home to the emptiness tears at my heart strings every single day. And Joe and I, knowing that one daughter will never join the family celebration rips apart her already grieving heart. But here come the "at least" moments...and they are not meant to be a substitute, but through this pain, "at least" I have Joe, Jennifer, and she has Matt and Joe and beautiful Sarah. At Least. To me that sounds minimizing. I don't even know if I should use the term, but sometimes I do. And so do others. When they do, I don't like the sound of the words, but I am beginning to understand that it is what we think, at times, some of us, in certain situations. "At least you have another child", they will say. "At least you can remarry if you choose," they will tell my sister. As if the "at least" makes those so called realities any better. The "at leasts" of life really do exist. I prefer to call them the blessings, not the at leasts!

I am brought back to many times when I have heard "at least" from my daughters. One time in particular was when Allison asked to go with a group of friends to Mexico for spring break, with the answer of course, being a very firm NO. But we had a plan, for our 25th wedding anniversary, we were going to take the girls to Hawaii, and as a "substitute" for the friend trip, we shared our plans. She really did not argue much with our emphatic NO to begin with, but when learning of Hawaii, she announced, "well, at least I get to go someplace". SOMEPLACE?? This was Hawaii we were talking about!!!! So at the very least, she had a trip of a lifetime, even her sister and her would agree!

At Least. It came back to us in more serious fashion with a cancer diagnosis. At least it's a treatable cancer. At least it's not spreading. At least it's not going to take her life. Until, of course, it was all of those. Then it became, at least I can still swallow and eat. At least it's not tongue cancer. At least it's not causing me to be incapacitated. At least I can still walk. At least I can still talk. At Least. There was always an at least. There was always a blessing, a reason to be hopeful and positive. There is always that "up side" where we know that for the grace of God go I...and the "at leasts" seem more like gifts in the making.

As our circumstances change, so go the "at leasts". They must. Allison left us that legacy, too. There was always an "at least". And there always will be. I am choosing not to look at them any longer as the diminishing and sometimes even ONLY option, but, rather, to think of her, and Michael, and all of us, and hear the words, and know they aren't degrading, they are hopeful. They don't really mean "at least" at all, they mean so much more.