Love for a lifetime

When Daddy was diagnosed with cancer, my family had to revisit a topic that we hadn't visited in 20+ years:  that of loving for a lifetime.  My younger brother was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when he was in elementary school.  There was a period of time (when Mom became the official paparazzi of our family) that we didn't think he was going to live.  My brother and I have both blocked most of this time from our mind.  It is odd how your mind can protect you from things.  Regardless, it was during this time that my mom first started feeling like she was living each day to love for a lifetime.  When you think the ones you love are going to be gone, you truly have to say everything and do everything you want with them now because there may not be a later.  Fortunately, my brother is still with us and apparently healed - doctor's can't find any traces of his disease.

I'm certain my parents never stopped loving for a lifetime every moment, but my brother and I were forced to learn that lesson with Daddy's diagnosis.  The blessing of cancer is that it provides you the opportunity to do the things you need to do and say the things you need to say before you can't do that anymore.  There was a lot of loving and living during the time following Daddy's diagnosis - with Daddy and with everyone in our lives.

After Kendrick died, I spent a lot of time wondering what went wrong.  Why hadn't anyone been able to tell me this was going to happen?  Why couldn't I have stopped it?  Would it happen again? Then, I was talking with a friend who had also had a miscarriage.  She said to me "You know, the baby can die anytime from conception to birth. And then your child can die anytime after. We just don't know."  I don't know that she has any idea how profoundly that stuck with me.  Kendrick is no different than Daddy.  It was simply his time to go.  He lived the life that he was supposed to live, even if it means that his entire existence was inside me. It doesn't mean that anything went wrong.  Her statement to me changed the way that I viewed the loss of our son and reminds me that I need to spend each day loving for a lifetime.