it’s late. i can’t sleep. It’s been one of those days where my mind is a million miles away from where it should be. A mommy is battling cancer. She has been fighting for 6 years. She has been in remission twice. She has five beautiful children. I met her four years ago. It was one of those friendships that seems like it’s been there forever. Our two families quickly became really good friends. We did so much together, almost always with our families in tow. Actually pretty much everything was a family affair. Meals, outings, adventures. All 10 (at that time we had 5) of our children loved spending time with the other family. Our husbands enjoyed each other’s company. Such a rare treasure to find.
When I met her, she was so full of life. Love. Thankful for the second and third chance she had been given at life. Her diagnose had come when her littlest girl had just turned one. Stage 4 colon cancer. She had fought hard and conquered. Every 6 months she would have tests, checking for any cancer that might have come back. And just before her seven year mark, which is when the doctors would give her a clean bill of health, it was there again. And this time, after all the fighting, after all the doctors and medicine have to offer, she has been sent home with only weeks, maybe days left to live. And I am heartbroken. I can hardly even see as I type these words. We live almost a thousand miles apart now. It’s been over two years since I have seen her. But the news this week brought back all the memories like it was yesterday. Each one of those children’s faces. The joy and love that bubbled out of their family. And I have wept. To imagine the sadness now. Waiting for what is now the inevitable. For a child to go to sleep at night and not know if, when they awake, their Mommy will still be there to hug and kiss them good morning. To be a child and have to lose the love of your life. Five beautiful, life loving, exuberant children.
I..am..heartbroken.
My head wants to scream “WHY???” Why, God, Why not one of the horrible men who abuse or destroy children? Why not someone who went on a killing spree? Why not take them away from here. Make this a safer place. Why does it have to be a Mommy?
But my heart knows the answer. We live in a fallen world. Where sin prevails. Where Satan roams freely. Where all death is inevitable. Where, even though it does not seem so, life is only a blink of the eye. What is ahead, what is important is Eternity. That word. Eternity. I can not even wrap my brain around the true meaning of it.
- Infinite or unending time.
- A state to which time has no application; timelessness.
I once heard a story that I thought was a good visual of Eternity. “If a dove were to fly around the whole world, and at the end of circling the earth, his wing brushed a piece of dirt off, and then he continued to do so, until the entire earth was a pile of dust, Eternity would only just have begun.
And so every moment here counts. Counts towards where we spend Eternity. In the presence of God, or in His absence. He gives us that choice. And right now, as I grieve for this family, God speaks. His Word is truth. He is just. He is Love. He is the Beginning and the End. He will be there for those children and her husband, when she can not. He will hold their little hands and hearts. He will pick them up and breath life into their exhausted bodies. He will give them strength and walk each step beside them, until he calls them home. To be with Him. For Eternity.
~cheryl
