Today I visited a school and at the end of the assemblies the questions were regular, how old are you? how much money do you make? how old are your children now? We are all a lot older than we were a few weeks ago. What I have learned from past surgeries in my life is that scar tissue comes back tougher than the onion skin nature gives us to begin with.
photos by sarah edleman
From left to right, Michael, me, Katie, Tom (Katie’s and Kelly’s dad and my ex-husband) Ro (Tom’s wonderful wife and my dear friend) Darcy (Ro’s daughter and Katie and Kelly’s stepsister and Kelly. I wouldn’t have thought that we needed to be tougher — but that is what we must become in order to support one another.
Gratefully, no one asked me how many grandchildren I have. The six pack is off balance. Now we begin to try and remold our family (again) and grow around the painful gash where darling Stephie used to be. The question I ask myself tonight is: how much longer, how many more days or weeks or months will it be before I can call any one of my family and just say “what’s up?” and not mean, are you still standing? Can you breathe today?
Family is what the universe gives us to teach us how to love, how to share, how to fight, how to make up, how to live, how to rejoice, how to heal, and how to go on. Kelly asked me this morning (when we were checking to make sure we were both breathing) if I could imagine what it would be like to go through something like this alone.
I can’t. We are so blessed.
You and your family are DEFINITELY not alone in this….I hope you can feel all the love coming your way, even from perfect strangers. Sending more “yellow”