This post is written with the gang over at Five-Minute-Friday where we write on a prompt, for five minutes, and then post. Don’t think, just do it! This week’s prompt: SAFE
It’s been sitting for nine years, safe in the bin I threw it in when I tried to return to “normal” after Andrew’s last chemotherapy appointment in December of 2007. I cherished each card, letter, poster, and note people sent to us. But suddenly, that year, I needed to hide them. We had more than enough reminders of Andrew’s travel through three and a half years of leukemia treatment.
I felt desperate to return to life.
Safe in the bin where I placed them. Reminders of support and love.
This week my school is kicking off the Pennies for Patients campaign for the Leukemia/Lymphona Society. On a search for the Pennies for Patients poster that featured Andrew, I rifled through that plastic tub that I have kept safe, but untouched for years. Just opening the lid provided a lightning flashback because of the innocuous heplock flush valve lying on top of the last MRI results. I could not read more than 6 or 7 cards, as the tears blurred my vision. The valves, flush syringes and deadening cream in the bottom of tub ensured the return of the cover.
But not before a huge rush of appreciation and love flooded me. I saw some imaginative and slightly odd cards decorated with love by children none of our family have ever met – those children who prayed for my boy. There were recognizable post-it-notes that I would find on my desk after returning to work after a nine-hour-day at chemo. I read hand-written poems and prayer placed in my mailbox by my high-school students and a note left on my clean pile of laundry by a friend. A couple of empty envelopes baffled me, but just until I remembered the lady who sent us half of her over-time check for 6 months straight to help us out. I hadn’t met her then, but she chose to bless us anyway.
There are more. So many more.
A tub full of blessings and love waiting for when I need it, or when I can handle it.
A safe place full of reminders that our world holds beauty in the midst of ugly, and safety in the middle of a storm.
There is still beauty in our world that keeps us safe and grounded through hard times #fmfparty #five-minute-friday #blessedbutstressed Click To TweetConfessions my FMF friends: I honestly have no idea how long this took me to write. I got hung up on the tub full of blessings tonight, which forced me to write when I thought I had nothing on the prompt!
