I sat and just smiled. I had gotten a little light headed collecting a deck of cards from the basement floor. And as soon as I stood up, I knew I needed to pop a squat for a bit. And so I rested my head away from the TV as the three littles and the big all looked on at a pre-bedtime episode of Doozers. The Littlest danced around, smacking his hands together. The Middlest fidgeted with the wiimote he’d wrapped around his legs two and three times over. And the Oldest leaned his head into the Big’s underarm. And I just smiled.
Even in life’s chaos, there can be found, contentment. I watched each of them and took that moment in. And when I stopped and felt that, that moment, I was amazed and in awe.
I had to let go of something recently. And letting go is a process. And the process will keep coming. I had to let go of the me without cancer. Not the person who existed without cancer. That Ashli will always be in me. She will always exist. But I had to let go of the losing of the innocence. The fact that I now know, I am not immuned to hard. Or hurt. Or illness. I had to let go of the idea that I will never be the girl who didn’t go through this. Because it’s just the facts. My stats.
I should have already known we weren’t immuned to life’s twists and turns. No one is. We’ve had three high risk pregnancies. We’ve had a 3 lb baby in the NICU {oh, Methodist Women’s how we adore you}. We’ve had times where money was tight. But for some reason, none of that really seemed hard. Motherhood has felt hard to me… challenging… mind numbing… emotionally exhausting at times. But yet, rewarding in a way that I didn’t know life could feel. But when I think about it, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt such a life shaking moment as I did when I was told I have cancer. So I’m having to let go of the idea that this will never not be a part of me. Of my story. Of my parent’s story. Of my sister and brother’s stories. Of my kid’s lives. Of Adam’s life. And of all of you who know me. You will all now know me as having had cancer. That will not change. And that’s a process of acceptance.
But in letting go, I am gaining speed. I am feeling like I have a life that is starting to feel a bit of normal once again. Yes, there is chemo. And there are doctor’s appointments. There are things I didn’t even know about two and a half months ago. But all of it is becoming my story. My life. We all have one… a story… and sometimes it writes itself, and other times, we can work to make it ours. Right now, I am having to strike a balance of having cancer and making it my life.
And so, even in the chaos… even in the uncertainty, there is some sort of solace in the fact that I feel this is what I am meant to be living right now. It’s impossible to explain that. I don’t think that God gave me cancer. But I think that there is something about this that was sort of kismet. I don’t know. Perhaps I’m crazy. Likely, I am.
When I was 23, and had just gotten married, a doctor in Texas told me that I should try to have any children we wanted for our family by the age of 32. I don’t know exactly why it was 32. But it was. He said it. He said that because I would have high risk pregnancies, it would make sense for us to start a family earlier than later. And so we did. And we were given three healthy pregnancies. And then, at the age of 33, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And you know what else I was told when they gave me my diagnosis… “Your tumor has probably been growing for 3, or 4 or 5 years.”
I was flabbergasted. Shocked. In the last 3 or 4 or 5 years, we’ve grown our family from one to two to three children. All while I, apparently, was growing cancer. That. That is astounding to me. Because all the while, I had cancer. But I was still having a life. And so that is how I will be carrying on. As much as possible.
And so, on nights like tonight, after we eat a dinner that someone else delivered. After I spent the last four days receiving every kind of help and assistance I might need from family and friends. After dancing the alligator and snuggling with my husband to the words, “I think to myself what a wonderful world” as my girlfriends gathered to celebrate another friend’s most memorable day. After pausing to say, man… this is a pretty good deal I have going here. After playing UNO around a table with the four main men in my life. Gosh. After that. I just smile. And feel a sense of contentment.
And I realize once again that it isn’t just happiness that breeds contentment. It’s living. It’s breathing. It’s feeling joy inside your veins, even on days when you’re tired, because you know that this life is a pretty incredible gift. And I think to myself… what a wonderful world. And I get to be here.
And that. Well that. Is for today, just enough.
