6 years.  Do you know what can happen in 6 years?

yea, me neither.  I tried to do a Google search and came back with stuff about felonies, a mummified woman and something about Georgia and a missile in Russia.  If you look at a listing of world news on August 7, 2008, you quickly find that it was not a good day for most people around the world.  So, I saved you the boredom of trying to make up something catchy. 

6 years ago, I was sitting in a waiting room for a follow up appointment.  It was a Thursday morning just like it is today.  I had done lab work and was fighting through big puppy dog tears.  It was a different morning.  Nothing was going like normal… nothing at all.  My consistencies were gone.  My numbing cream didn’t work on my port.  None of the people that I knew were in the lab.  And, I was really tired from an early drive to LR.

He came in the room.  Looked at everything and said “you’re done”.  Just like that, 6 months of appointments, scans, drives to Little Rock, chemo, radiation, retail therapy, it was all over.

I had a wee, tiny bit of a voice and when I did talk I sounded like I had chained smoked for 25 years.  But, I was done. 

I remember so much of that day like it was yesterday.  I remember walking to my car and being so confused.  I remember calling my dad and saying “he used the ‘R’ word”, and then had to explain what I meant.  I remember going to eat at Olive Garden with my mom and sister and all I wanted was breadsticks and lots of Alfredo Sauce so I could swallow them. 

I remember being told to go back to “normal” and most everything after that is gone. 

Normal wasn’t even in my vocabulary.

I’ll start today in a meeting at an oncology center much like the one I visited myself.  I will intentionally look people in their eye and search for their soul.  I will smile with more hope than one can offer.  I will hug harder, laugh deeper and take in every breath in a different way. 

I teared up reading back through this day in 2008.  I was reminded that God is always faithful.  That His promises are ALWAYS true and that He has a plan for life that FAR exceeded anything that I could have dreamt up. 

6 years.  That’s a long time.  Its over the hump.  But, its always still fresh.  Today, I’ll hold on a remember.  No promises there wont be tears for days gone by, for gratitude, for joy.