It's everywhere

The door swings open and the doctor says "It is a cancer" even before the door finds its fullest extension.  Typing those words now makes my hands sweat. Even 26 weeks later.  How do '37', 'just played basketball', 'has 2 boys' and 'cancer' all go in the same sentence.   It still shocks, confuses, devastates me.

We went from healthy to pain so quickly.  Shortly after we got the news we ended up in the emergency room not knowing if that is what terminal patients should do but hoping for some relief. And it was in the middle of that night shift when we learned what cancer does.  It spreads.  Quickly, pervasively and everywhere.  As I looked at the love of my life asleep on a hospital bed, knocked out by some concoction pumping into his arm, I couldn't believe we hadn't known.  We hadn't seen the cells moving, finding home in his lungs, his bones, his liver.  We didn't know. We couldn't see.

It seems the same with grief.

Tonight, the coach gathered the young baseball players together to let them know one of their own has lost their father to cancer.  (Same exact story, liver, young children, and weeks between diagnosis and death).  I know there wasn't a door swinging open on the baseball field but I'm sure the words hit my son as quickly as they did his dad and I months ago.  Now the question is "How can '11', 'baseball', 'Christmas' and 'down-on his-knees sad' go in one sentence?"    It still shocks, confuses, devastates me.

My son went from happily throwing a ball in from center field to sitting in a van unable to walk inside due to his tears.  Seeing it happen to another family was too much for his system.  I don't need the emergency room doctor to explain to me how the grief has spread.  How, without me seeing it, this pervasive sadness has reached my son on the baseball field, touched him while he sits under a Christmas tree, and grabbed him while he sleeps.  It spreads.  Quickly, pervasively and everywhere.  As I watch this little boy resting on the couch, knocked out by how completely he misses his hero, I completely understand.  I have seen the sadness moving, finding home in his heart, his head, his soul.  I do know.  I can see.

Cancer taught me that much.  I can see the same metastasizing beast in grief.  But this time I have a chance to fight.  I wasn't given that gift last time.  Not this time.  I plan on fighting grief so that it doesn't completely overtake our system sucking the energy of life into its devious alternate plan.

Yes, my little precious 11 year old will cry.  My boy-turning-man, 13 year old will scream.  I will sob as I ache for my partner.  Those around us will watch as grief reaches into each system. Until our hearts, head and souls are suffocated by the sadness.

And then we will fight it.  We will remember what a gift it is to bear his name.  To be owned by him.  To be watched by him.  We will fight by being like him.  By sneaking cookies in church.  By playing sports until we sweat.  By having quiet whispers reminding us of moments we had with him. 

This time we will win knowing we only have to be separated from him once.  Someday soon he will meet us, gather us in his arm, whisk us away to the heavenly mansion he has prepared for us and get back to water gun fights and tag playing.  We will win.