This is us yesterday, celebrating. Zach was singing and dancing in a very un-Mennonite way. I’m sorry that it’s been about six months. Please forgive me because it wasn’t at all personal…it’s only that I had a lot I needed to get done. I realized around Christmas that I was hungry for something that…
This. This right here is the most powerful thing I know: this bizarre freight train of love for a boy who asked for a fly swatter (see bottom right of photo) and car keys (without a car) for Christmas. This is my beating heart. I leave hours and hours open every day to be someone’s…
When Toban came to find me in the cancer center waiting room, we both knew that was probably one of the most important days of our lives. So he immediately started to laugh when he got close enough to realize what I was doing in the meantime. I was on the phone with CNN explaining…
Most of my worst thoughts hover around a single word. Alone. For a long time, I felt like I was the only person in the world who will die. It was the weird feeling that began in the haze of my diagnosis. I remember standing in the lobby of Duke Hospital, waiting for them to…
“There’s the gradual, long way up the mountain—and that’s the easier way.” My oncologist is looking at me very sternly, which I know is difficult for him. He’s very nice, and this is the closest thing he’s ever given to a lecture. “And then there’s the steep, fast climb—and that’s the harder way. You’ve been…
Every two months I walk up to the edge of the cliff. Will I live another two months of uninterrupted life? Meandering walks with Zach. A deep pour of wine on a patio somewhere. Everything begins to feel like it is made of glass. It started when I joined the clinical trial at Emory, and…
I was twenty-two when I got married. Young. Dumb. Happy. And quick on my feet. That was fourteen years ago today. I married the boy I met at Bible camp because he was funny and kind and absurdly good looking. We stood in a barely air-conditioned church in front of gobs of Mennonites and friends…
In about five minutes, Mr. Hospital Scrubs is going to pump something that looks like blue Kool-Aid into my veins and slowly push me into a whirling, deafening CT machine. I’ll hold my breath on and off so they can get a better picture. “This is your scan day?” asks a kindly nurse. She is…
Late last year a miracle occurred when Kate was admitted to an experimental trial of an immunotherapy drug at Emory University in Atlanta. Further miracles provided for some out-of-state insurance coverage and air fare for her flights from Durham. There is no doubt that without that treatment Kate’s cancer would have worsened and her fate…
I have had two untouchably perfect moments in my life. One was running down the aisle with my new husband on our wedding day. And the other was when they put baby Zach in my arms, and our eyes met, and it was like a conspiracy of perfect adoration. Two months ago, out of the…
