Connections

As I look back on my life, I can pinpoint times when very significant connections were formed.  These were times of change, transitions, endings, beginnings.  These were times when groups of people were beginning new journeys together.  While we pick up people during our lives there are just those special times: Freshman year of college, first year of the first really job, graduate school,  the like. 

I realize being a bonified member of Cancer World has done the same thing.  While we are all in the same boat much of the time we all have different journeys.  Some good, some not so good.  We often don't know last names or diagnosis or prognosis but we know the pain that binds us together.  We know the fear and the terror and the anxiety  of waiting for scans or counts or waiting for the match notification.  The unique pain of watching the chemo or the blood or the weird green platelets drip into your child's heart via a port or a Hickman.

We all live in terror of Relapse, Re-occurrence, Secondary Cancer or late stage side-effects.  We are caught in the same web avoiding the middle. We fight against it but we are here together, to support, cry, pray, plead, listen, what ever is needed at that moment, for the person entering the web for the first time or the last.  We are here together.  

Some think this is a godly plan of further shaping us and for growth and for......  I just don't believe any God, Any GOD would ever make a child suffer to help a parent learn to be more patient or kind or understanding or more giving.  I believe our children are in this web with us just because.  Luck of the draw, or should I say bad luck.  My God does not make little children suffer to make a point. 

I do believe once here, our needs are taken care of in amazing ways.  The comfort of others comes forward in miraculous haste.  The right doctors, the right nurses, the right donor, the right meal, the right phone call the right person to share their experiences with you.  That is where God is, with the kindness and love and support.  Faith requires you to rest back and let it happen and accept what comes your way.  No requirement to be stoic about it.  No requirement to be happy or accepting.  There are huge fights and battles and challenges and our involvement is required and needed.  There is deep disappointment and loss and grief and agony and helplessness.  It all is often just too much.  There are times you really don't think you can stand one more bit of bad news.  One more moment of sadness.  But reality is you can. It passes, it subsides, it fades a bit. 

It was suggested I break away from those at Children's.  Stay away from the despair.  I might be on the outer edges of the web again but I know I can return to the downward spiral and head to the middle of the web in a blink.  No more could I leave those I have such powerful connections to then fly of my own power. 

Spider Web is the strongest connector in the world outside of the bonds between Cancer Mom's.