my thankful stack

in early january of this year my because-of-cancer friend, kim rexius, gave me a stack of colorful cards with envelopes.  each card had a fun quote on it about being thankful.  all told, there were 52 cards.   one card for each week of the year with instructions to write down each week something i was thankful for.  and on that day in january this year, i had so much to be thankful for. i was in remission, my energy was returning and i was beginning to regain territories that i had lost during my treatments...including my hair!

i had some new resolve and a year ahead to be thankful for.  i knew that i would not have trouble finding things to be thankful for each day so finding 52 things for a whole year seemed quite easy.

for several weeks, every monday, i wrote down my thankful on a card and put it in a little bag hanging on the wall in my office.  then i got a head ache, an mri, another diagnosis, had brain surgery and radiation, yada yada yada and that is sort of how my year started trending.  i stopped writing my thankful's down.  like many new years resolutions to eat better or exercise more, i stopped because my muscles got sore or the french fries looked too good to pass up or when i sat down to do write it down, i sometimes didn't feel very thankful.  some days it was just too much work to be thankful, other times i just felt sorry for myself.

the stack sat on my desk, nestled sweetly between my pencil holder and the printer, untouched but gently reminding me to be thankful.

a few weeks ago, as i was straightening up, the stack got moved next to my bed.  i had a plan now!  48 weeks later i would use those cards still!

bright this morning, the stack called me out of bed.  it was time to address my thankful stack.

ipad in hand, calendar app poised, i began a review of my year. and i began to write down something for every week. first one thing, then two things per card and by years end...many things on each card.  although i know this was not how it was intended, this became a beautiful exercise in thankfulness.

as card number 48, 49, 50, and 51 rolled up to the top of the stack, my heart became full to overflowing with the incredible year i have experienced.  yeah yeah...i know, i got diagnosed three times with brain tumors, had major surgery on said tumors, went through 7 rounds of radiation therapy, had my blood drawn and iv's inserted more times than i can mention, was told horrific statistics like 70% chance of recurrence and "months not years" and i shed more tears in this year than probably any other year in my life, know more about the brain and cancer and now possess a broad medical terminology repertoire...BUT oh my...the moments in between all those moments were precious and full and beautiful.

we witnessed people commit their lives to each other in beautiful wedding ceremonies, some of them offering second chances to happiness, some of them new, young lives pledged together.

i did things i have always wanted to do like go to the country fair and kayak and take my son to new york city.  i hiked and traveled. i got to share my story several times in order to prevent other women from going through what i did and stood behind the governor or oregon as he signed into law senate bill 420.

one card says "frozen yogurt".

one card says, "let's do that!"

there were reunions, reconciliations and re-connections.

disneyland...always thankful for disneyland

things inspired and sustained me like good wine and great food, good words and even better scripture.

i slowed down, sometimes i sped up, i chose differently, i laughed more, i made mistakes on my behavior that i still regret but am learning from.

i saw myself in my hospital bed for six days, dizzy and throwing up, but i see people around me with laughter and hope.  i wrote down that i am thankful for headaches because without them, hugh would not have pressed me to get it checked.  i see the bad things that we encountered but they didn't rise to the surface as i explored my year.   i look back and i am struck with God's timing, provision and presence in it all. Look at what He did here and there and here!

i have many names on my cards because of the new friends i have made this year and the old friends that have become new again.

i wrote down that i am thankful for cancellations and bad news...i found opportunities there that i wouldn't have found otherwise.

i could go on! in fact, now as i write, i have decided to go back and write more on those cards...there is so much more.

card number 52: goodbye 2013...you were a great year!  i am thankful for every moment. many of them not happy but all of them, moment by moment, day by day, week by week created quite a year to be thankful for.

shifting gears

there was no letter for santa this year.

no letter and no cookies and milk waiting by the fireplace.

the stockings were hung by the chimney and the tree decorated but many ornaments were left in the boxes and i am pretty sure my teenager only hung one of her family ornaments this year.  for the first time in 24 years, mason did not sleep in our home on Christmas Eve but went back to his apartment and returned in the morning.  instead of waiting in the hallway for permission to come down for presents, the children gathered in the kitchen when they heard mason arrive.  they each had a cup of hot cider while I finished the "egg dish" preperation, sliced the pineapple and cooked sausage. what a lovely few minutes with my grown and growing children!

after some prodding they agreed to return to the stairwell for a picture before walking calmly into our family room for stockings and gifts.  the mad dash to see what santa had left was replaced by a calm saunter and some gentle ribbing.

while the shift from these long-held traditions has happened easily like a well-oiled gear moving into place, others traditions have not slid out of practice with such grace.  for a while now many of these rituals have been moving into the category of "something that we used to do", some because of my own lack of energy and others because our children are growing up.  as lucas put it regarding the annual letter to santa, "it feels a little forced, mom".  

growing up these rituals meant so much to me and when things began to shift away from them, due to my own siblings aging out of the tradition and my parents divorce, i felt crushed.

how could Christmas happen without all the tradition? 

steeping my own little family in these same rituals has been fun but, I admit, exhausting.  there have been years I have loathed the approaching holiday season because it meant so much added work to keep the traditions alive.  a friend and i, discussing the rituals we had created for our families and she said, "i wished i'd done it differently".  me too! 

i wish i had not steeped the season in so many "we have to do's" and incorporated more spontaneous what-if's.  I wish I had been more in the moment with my kids instead of trying to create moments for them.  

the gears got oiled for change in the last few years out of sheer necessity for me and so this year, as the expressions of "forced" came across my children's faces, i let many things go and settled into whatever might occur in the new and different way of "having Christmas".  I could see, off in the hazy future, a Christmas when it is just hugh and i as the children are away or creating their own, hopefully un-forced traditions somewhere else.  the hazy shot didn't actually make me feel sad...it sort of elated me.  not because they would be gone but because they felt the confidence and love to go.  

and then what would Christmas be like?  well, who knows!  but it will be fun to find out and maybe do something completely different and un-traditional...quite a shft!

many traditions still exist and are required by my children:  new pj's on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning egg dish with pineapple.  One in particular, the making of my great-grand mothers Christmas plum pudding (aka "the brain"), is one they verbally confirmed they don't care about.  I do it for myself and to honor my father and his family but it seems appropriate that this year it also took a serious hit.

mixed with militaristic precision on Christmas Eve with ingredients like suet (beet fat), currants and nutmeg, and then wrapped in a flour sack cloth overnight in the fridge, it is boiled in its cloth wrapper all day Christmas Day.   unwrapped, it looks like a giant brain on a plate.  it is doused in warm brandy and, with every light switched off in the house, a match is taken to it and it is flamed!  Beautiful!  served with a butter sauce, it is an acquired taste and one that my children have never acquired.

this year, no matter how long I boiled it, it just would not set up.  Finally and because it was now or never, it was released from its package to the plate.  I could only laugh at this sorry excuse of grandma's pudding but I have to admit my pride took a hit.  There were consoling phone calls from my siblings and father who had made their own perfect puddings but in the end, ours was flamed with only Lucas and Hugh and i in attendance as the guests had moved on as had mason and isabel. 

Ah tradition...i could actually feel the gears change this year and I liked the funny new pace it created.  

spider

there was a spider in my house.  this arachnid wasn't just a small specimen.  it was one of those big bodied, long hairy-legged buggers that people take pictures of next to a half-dollar coin and post on Facebook so others will believe them when they try to tell you how big it was.  it is gone now but from the first hints of day when i realized that it was in my home, it's presence made me feel edgy.

in the wind and rain from the night before, it took a ride on the wind chimes that hugh brought in off  the front porch.  during the hot, calm nights of summer these don't interrupt my sleep even with the windows open, but with the season changes have come high winds that have whipped up a musical cacophony heard even behind closed windows, blinds and curtains.  the hitch hiking spider took opportunity to build a web in the night hours between the window and the handle of the sheet music cabinet where hugh had placed the chimes.  my morning routine continued as normal: retrieving the newspaper off the porch, glancing at the headlines while the dog took care of business outside and then placing the paper on top of the cabinet for hugh when he woke up.  only when I switched on the light did i see the little travelor.  it was there on it's web, having saved us from some other insect in the house and preparing its own breakfast while I watched.  

i have dealt with my fair share of spiders in my lifetime, but have my criteria for disposal. 1. it has to be against a hard surface before I will go in for the kill (much easier to just smack it with my shoe than try to remove it from its nest with a flimsy kleenix brand tissue) and 2. If there is someone else in the house who is more capable, then the job can wait for them.  spider in web, husband in bed...this guy's life was spared if only for an hour.  isabel got a preview and a "dad will deal with it when he gets up."

sitting in my chair with my tea watching the sun come up, back to the spider, I read and prayed.  distracted, ever aware if it's crawly noises going in behind me, I peeked over my shoulder several times to make sure it was still snacking.  yep, still hanging out, doing what spiders do...be creepy!  30 minutes later, the hubby makes his way down to grab the paper.  informing him of our visitor, I ask if he can dispose of it for me.  "what spider?", he says. "I don't see anything!" 

ahhhhh! what?  gone!?!  web and all, the insect has now taken up residence somewhere in my house...and I don't know where. 

you can bet that it was all I thought about ALL day. every time i walked past the chimes, now moved to lay flat on a table in the entryway, i peeked and peered and worried.  knowing it was somewhere...crawling, building a home, sharpening it's fangs, maybe even laying eggs!  i kept busy all day but you would have thought a monster had moved into my cozy home with how much thought energy I was spending on this small bug.  I knew if I found it, I could deal with it, it was not knowing where it was that kept me on edge.   

and of course, being me, I start equating this situation to my life. I am in this funny, sometimes awkward place with my disease where we know the cancer is in the house, we are aware of its presence and are being vigilant to address it, but for right now all we can do is keep moving about the house, working, cleaning, living, entertaining, loving each other and choosing not to live afraid.  as the day wore on, and every time I passed the spot of potential spiderness, I would say a little prayer that our new resident wasn't making himself too comfortable but also that I would not be afraid.  I began to realize that there might be other things in my life that I needed to pray over, that had rented a room in my spirit, that needed eviction or at least some attention.  so many things I can't change but I need to address my fear about them and learn to be thankful in it if not for it. I am pressing into those things today that scare me, and they have made me feel restless and unstable a bit.  and i am okay with that.  

by late afternoon, the arachnoid had crawled out of one of the wind chime hollows and was resting awkwardly on an envelope on the edge of the table.  a teenage squeal (from my teenager not from me) a smack of my boot and it was over.  everyone could rest easy tonight with the knowledge that no creepy crawly things lingered....at least the one we know about.  Known or unknown I can co-exist with many of the things that frighten me even though a little restless and unstable at times, with a prayerful heart and with joy and thankfulness.