It's spring in Kentucky. The trees are putting on an early show with short bursts of color. The bright purples, pinks, and whites are a shock to the senses after the dull browns and grays of the long winter. The grass is starting to grow rapidly and has transformed from a dull, dark green into a vibrant, living, movement filled carpet that is so beautiful and bright it hurts the eyes. We are surrounded by new life. The birds are singing bright notes, the earth is teeming with living things. It's a low hum of life that will become louder each day until it reaches a shrill frenzy in the hot summer and regresses into sleep with the autumn days.
We celebrated Easter and Christ's resurrection with a perfect blue sky day. I watched the bees happily making their way through the warm air. I listened carefully for the frogs singing in the evening, but I couldn't hear them from the hill on which my parents' house is perched. And while my eyes delighted in the colors and my skin relished the warm breezes, I also had to fight, claw my way out of the darkness, coldness that tries to control me.
We've cruised past the one-year anniversary of Covid, one year of lock downs, isolation--one that was very different from all the years before. One year since I walked into a store, sat near a friend, hugged a friend, sat in our church, and heard voices lifted to Heaven. I could have made different choices early on in the pandemic, but God, in His wonderful grace and mercy, gave me peace regarding COVID, and also an odd desire to be careful that I couldn't always explain. I was fearful at first, like many others, but later it wasn't fear but some urging that kept me cautious. I thank God for that direction and how He kept Kurt safe. This time last year, Kurt first starting feeling faint at times, oddly out of breath. We chalked it up to getting older, being out of shape, and later I suspected Lyme disease, poor diet, anything, anything except Leukemia.
Eight months ago, after months of isolation, church on the lawn, drive by birthdays, lots of Amazon orders and grocery pick ups, life was again thrown off in kilter an even greater way when Leukemia seemed to blindside us. I'm a researcher by nature and thankfully my degree has helped me to be able to find good sources of knowledge. What is at times a gift can also be a curse. I remember wishing during that time of waiting that I wish I didn't have the knowledge--just enough--to know that something was very, very wrong. They day we got the blood work back that sent us racing to a hematologist/oncologist, I saw the results first on the medical portal while in the van. We were somewhere in Indiana driving home from Missouri. I scrolled up and down frantically, reading the numbers again and again. I knew. My stomach sank through the floor of the car. My breath grew short. I felt bile in the back of my throat. "Whatever it is, it isn't good." I knew that.
I think I have been reflecting on that day more recently, as we get closer to transplant day. A lot of those initial emotions have been washing over me again and again. There is fear of the unknown. No matter how much we read regarding transplant, no matter how much we feel prepared, we are stepping off another cliff and diving into a mysterious and unpredictable future. I, for one, am terribly afraid of heights. I can only climb onto the second or third rung of a ladder before I start become dizzy. I didn't expect the kind of cliff diving we would be called to do during the last thirteen months, but apparently metaphorical cliff diving also triggers the same dizzy, out of control feelings as I imagine the real thing does.
The truth, however, is that we are always standing at the edge of a cliff, the edge of the mysterious and unknowable future. In the long run, as believers, we know the end of the story--the magnificent and glory-filled end. As finite humans, we don't know what's coming day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, heartbeat to heartbeat. Leukemia, and I imagine any other life changing diagnosis, just brings the cliff edge into sharper view. What we once viewed through the hazy fog of our own weak willpower and human ability to think we are in control, is given over to a sharp, clear, binocular-like focus of the cliff's edge. We don't know if we will fall in the abyss or sprout wings and soar. Perhaps we will fall a little way and land on a surprisingly soft bed of grass or snow. We might be beaten, bruised, or impaled on the sharp rocks at the bottom.
Approaching transplant is a bit like this. It's not a task that is undertaken lightly. It is a treatment reserved for when the "big guns" are needed. It's something to be avoided until it becomes absolutely necessary. It is a hope for a cure, but a road sometimes paved with hellish suffering. We won't know if Kurt will be among those who sail through or if he will be one who has a rocky road before him, until our feet leave the cliff's edge and and we jump headlong into the wind.
I find myself rocking on the ocean of a thousand emotions. Some moments are so normal that they slip by unnoticed as they did before--the daily grind of dishes, laundry, school, bedtime routines, crafts, and family walks. Other moments are filled with such a grief-filled sorrow that I can only clasp the edges of my little boat, white-knuckled until they pass--folding his shirts, his wedding band on the dresser, the soft rustle of the bed as he climbs in--what if it all passes away? And I'm off, sailing through a private storm until my little boat catches, and the anchor pulls me back to calm waters.
We are watching the sunrises and the sunsets from the cliff edge these days. They are frighteningly beautiful, so clear. Soon we will rise, dust off our feet, join hands and when he jumps into that darkness, I'll jump with him. We'll hold on tightly to the sides of the boat and trust God's hands will gently guide us through to the other side of the valley.
"But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."
Isaiah 40:31
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