Robbed @24

I was ROBBED... By what I consider the most awful thing ever... This thing has no compassion it takes, takes, takes and ruins life's and leaves emptiness. Yes what was taken can not be fixed or replaced. This thing did not think of how I would feel after it took from me. It did not even stop to consider what I would be losing, or how important it was to me. Plain and simple it just did not care. 

Like many other I was ROBBED by CANCER... I wish I could say I was not one of the many who is affected by cancer! :( sadly the impact that had on my life changed it forever. 

May 2001 I had just discovered I was expecting my 2nd child after trying for almost a year. The excitement of that news was short lived because the news we received shortly after was that my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. We were very optimistic in the beginning, radiation and chemo therapy started shortly after diagnosis. I tried to spend all the time I could at my parents house. Grateful that I lived close enough to do so. Fighting my dad for the bathroom him being sick with chemo and me morning sickness... Lucky for me mine would subside, he was not as lucky. He would say this chemo is killing everything good and bad in my body. He was hooked up to a stomach port for feeding because nothing tasted good due to the radiation he said everything tasted like metal and could care less if he ate. So port went into his stomach that we could hook to a machine to feed him a can that would give him nourishment. He would get so annoyed because a soda can size would take 2 hours to pump in. While I was growing my dad was shrinking and eventually lost all his hair. 

January 2002 we were blessed with our 2nd daughter, looking back at all the photos I am saddened because my dad refused to be photographed because he did not want us to remember him looking like a cancer patient. So thank you Cancer for stealing that moment from me... 

Treatment continued but my dad seemed to get worse and worse by May (1 year after diagnosis) he was to the point of not being able to walk anymore and was In so much pain. My husbands job required Him to leave for training for 12 weeks only coming home on weekends. Leaving me with 2 small children and a dad who was now no longer battling cancer but dying from it. 

After a new scan it was discovered that the cancer in the esophagus was no longer present but the cancer had spread to his bones. It was now everywhere. They could continues a more aggressive chemo but this would not save his life at this point nothing would. This chemo would only allow him more time. 

My dad chose to not do anymore treatments he chose quality over quantity of time.  

So what exactly did cancer rob from me you ask?  That awful no good disease referred to as CANCER took my dad at age 47, the memories that could have, would have, and should have been made between father and daughter, and grandpa and grandkids. Even if he would not allow us to take pictures of him during his cancer treatment and final days you can never erase from your memory. What cancer does to the body, he may have saved that image for future generations but for those of us that watched that battle from May 2001-August 2002 I know exactly what cancer did to him. It humbled him took away his dignity, his hair, his body deteriorated from a 6'4 260 lb. man to maybe 110 lbs skin hanging from bone and muscle completely void from the big strong body that once existed. We sat back helpless and watch the color and life drain from him. Cancer left a void and sadness that can never be replaced. 

I HATE you cancer and will never forgive you for what you ROBBED from me!!! 

Father’s Day

Father’s Day, my heart sank as I sat gazing through the windshield at that dark shadow of my dads headstone.  I couldn’t help wipe away the warm tears trickling down my cheeks as I walked towards it at 3 am. I sat resting my back against it and stared up at the stars. That moment how grateful I was that my father wasn’t alive to see the nightmare-ish sight of me.  

As I sat and reflected on the utter shattering of my heart, why I couldn’t keep it together and I began hiding again  the loss that lay before me.  I had my life’s journey with big, fairytale plans.  I had pictured my own “white picket fence”, and my perfect little family, complete with a “happily ever after”.  Unfortunately, that is not what lies before me. I had dreamed, built, worked hard, planned, and cared for that life. 

I wondered how many other people dread this day, or the whole month of June like me? 

Felt disappointment as their dreams shattered around them.  I wondered how many others like me; shattered, broken, abandoned, and left to piece things back together, when there life was ripped away. 

Life seemed to move forward without me the wee hours of this morning as I sat at the final resting place of the body of my dad. I knew he was there and I knew he was watching the tears. 

Transparency of my shattered pieces, he asked that I stopped trying to hide the pain of my past and all its difficulties. 

I have found that it is those shattered pieces of my heart is where God’s love and light shine for my unique purpose. I don’t understand why he wants me to share my humanness, my fragile pieces I want to keep hidden. 

Life is full of shattered pieces, illness, death, depression, addiction, loss of jobs, loss of insurance, divorce. These things in life that crack and damage our spirits. 

I may hate June but I know the lord won’t keep me here. In His own loving way, in his  own time God will renew these shattered pieces. He isn’t going to fix me the same as I was. I not sure she even exists anymore or that he will ever find the whole her. 

I sat in the cool morning breeze of this day and softly spoke to my dad. Letting the tears fall with every word. Knowing he could hear them all and that he was close by. Just wanting to hear his voice one more time, wanting to touch his hand, wanting nothing more than to cry in his arms. Knowing that wanting all those things will never bring him back. Knowing that I will see him again one day when my journey and mission in this life is fulfilled. 

This is why I write. 

I don’t know why it has happened this way. I not even sure why he wants me to live this. 

I do know this, as I have prayed this week and asked if it was okay if I went back into hiding all the shattered pieces of me and my story, if I had done enough. I really don’t want to write the next part as I am not wanting to share the pain of it. 

I took my prayers to the one place I knew I could listen without the world influencing that answer. I sat in that celestial room and I prayed. Asked and listened waiting  until I knew my answer, I didn’t like the answer but I knew. I attended twice that day and because I couldn’t just trust it the first time, I asked again and again it was the same. As I sat with my dad this morning I asked that he help his little girl heal from the wounds of this. 

I know the lord has a unique purpose for all of us. I know I am not alone in this journey, I know that like me there are so many others wishing this wasn’t what lies ahead of them. That they too feel the loss of the life and future which was taken.

Let us all allow the love of the savior to shine through our shattered pieces. 

Calm Before the Storm

A sense of despair and broke trust that’s what followed me for months and I hated that about myself. Forgiving that was difficult because I remember that he was self-centered, dishonest, entitled, irresponsible, impulsive, and aggressive through all of it. The comments that would haunt me remembering how cruel and cold he was.

The day he grabbed my leg and said if I didn’t know better I would think this was all fat.

The night we laid out on the tramp with the kids looking at stars and I said why would you give any of this up.

 His reply “we can always be friends with benefits.” 

How he told me I was crazy.

I had forgotten this until therapy brought it up a few weeks ago. A few month after moving back in he was sexting a co-worker at his office. She had just split from her husband and had gallbladder surgery.  When I read the messages between the two of them I tried to convince myself he is just being nice, but I knew that it was more then I wanted to give credit to. I shut down, went silent. That’s what I did when I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t crazy and that I wasn’t over reacting. He asked me what was wrong and I called him out on it, I repeated the whole text conversation to him.  He said I was just trying to be nice. Funny I don’t every remember texting any of my coworkers about how I would love to come over and make them feel better. Her asking him how much more weight she should lose.

I sent her a message and asked her to please stop sexting with my husband. 

I got no reply. 

I regret not seeing the signs of addiction then. Should I have pushed therapy then. I was angry at the lord so I wasn’t about to ask for his help I didn’t need his kind of help if he was going to allow me to continue living this trial in life. No thank you lord I will figure this out myself and for probably a good 6 months I didn’t pray, I attended church when I felt like it but that wasn’t often. I stopped paying my tithing you know because I was going to show him just how angry he had made me. Yep I wasn’t about to ask the lord for a thing. 

Too bad he couldn’t smack me upside the head. What I have learned is that he can’t and won’t take our free agency away. 

Good things for kids because I know I went back because I had a 8 year old boy wanting to be baptized like all his sisters cousins and friends. 

The lord gave me those little blessing to keep me Christ centered and that’s what softened my heart. 

I had decided that at this moment I had done what the lord had asked and that my marriage was worth saving. I was committed for time and all eternity. He was my person, he had made mistakes but I loved him all of him. I couldn’t imagine life without him. I didn’t want to actually. 

After this sexting incident,  I felt like he did the work. He helped restore the sense of safety and rebuilt trust and I believe every word of it. 

At times I suffered from sadness, disappointment and anger. I knew that no marriage was perfect and that everyone else also felt this way from time to time. The first year was plagued with fear, suspicion and some jealousy. My my mind was working on protecting my heart and was on full alert. I worked hard at keeping those feeling at bay and focused on forgiveness. 

I set some boundaries and we worked together to build. It took time but we did it I felt that we had come back and we were stronger then ever. I worked on building that self esteem that had been severely damaged. 

I had no idea what was in store for me. 

I got the the point of trusting him fully I didn’t suspect, I didn’t question, I still had triggers that would pop up like when he left town for work because of that LA trip that would reveal his affair. I didn’t doubt I felt he loved me just as much. We went on the live what I would describe our happy amazing lives with our 3 beautiful amazing kids. I honestly thought this made us better people that it brought us closer together, that it made us have a better marriage. 

Fast forward to 2017, 20 years together and we had this amazing love story. 

Many family vacations, weekend get aways. We had booked our anniversary cruise for July/Aug. 

I couldn’t have been more happy with my life. I had everything I ever wanted my Prince Charming and a wonderful love story that had survived what would have ruined other marriages. Nope we had conquered the ugly and were planning for the future, kids graduating and retirement right around the corner. We talked about traveling the world. What kind of grandparents we were going to be. I was so excited about this amazing future.

I had no idea the storm that had been brewing, the storm I knew nothing about. The storm that would destroy it all! 

I had no idea it was all a lie. I had no idea about the double life that was just about to surface.