STRESS & CONFUSION
We will be going to Utah on Saturday to attend a wedding. I am already stressing about it because we will not be able to attend the ceremony. Hannah's last Jazz Concert is the night before and there is no flight to SLC late enough that we can catch. We will have to catch the earliest flight out the morning of the wedding in time to make it to the wedding brunch. Cost of airline tickets for three: $850 and change. We will have to spend the night to make it to the reception. That means we will have to pay for a hotel room and a car rental too. We will leave on the early flight back to LAS on Sunday morning to make it to church where Kurt will be conducting the meetings and I am scheduled to teach Relief Society. I haven't even read the lesson. Yikes.
Here's what I'm hoping: I am hoping that family members will appreciate our efforts of being there even if we miss the ceremony. I am hoping that there will be no fault-finding. I am hoping that there will be no criticisms and gossip and especially any kinds of assumptions, presumptions and/or judgments regarding our decisions and preferences. I am hoping that there will be no backtalk or complaining to each other about our motivations. I am hoping that there will be no veiled comments, insults that masquerade as jokes or attempts to "put one over me" or any member of my immediate family. I am hoping that everyone will just be happy to be together and forget about competing or other garbage.
Today, I found out that my step-sister who is only 42 years old has liver cancer. She has baseball-sized tumors in her liver that they have identified as malignant. There are still gargantuan tumors left in her liver and the doctors simply closed her up and sent her home. The doctors still have to figure out what kind of cancer they are up against. It feels so grim right now and I feel dark all over.
Also this morning, a close family friend took her father to undergo routine colonoscopy. They found colon cancer and they asked him to surrender to surgery ASAP---possibly today. It also sounds grim.
Family is so important. Life is so unpredictable. And we are at the age where things happen. There are three children who may lose their mother. My step-sister may not live to see her grandchildren love her, touch her, hug her, give her kisses. She is so young and had so many aspirations. She was on the track of improving her life. Now she is stopped right on her tracks. I am devastated.
There is a daughter who may lose her father at a time when she is just getting to know him better and enjoying his company not just as her father but as another human being. He may not see his grandchildren become teenagers. They will not enjoy his company and his affections....his quiet acts of service and sharing. He merely came to town for a short visit from a far away country oceans and times away and now he sits stunned that somewhere in his body, there are alien cells threatening to end his life.
For years and years, I watched as families pass on the many opportunities to communicate love and affection---dangerously failing to foster understanding, harmony and joy that they are in fact, a family. I watch as they deliberately and without thought, pass on the many opportunities to bond, grow and understand each other and instead, demur and choose to be distant, silent or disconnected. I hope that they do not get to the inevitable points in life where they have to be compelled to invest, nurture and care for every relationship that they have been gifted with.
As I ponder on the seeming inequities of life, I am beset with a sudden sadness and a sense of foreboding. Suddenly, going to a wedding where I can be shredded to pieces doesn't sound too bad at all. At least for right now.
Here's what I'm hoping: I am hoping that family members will appreciate our efforts of being there even if we miss the ceremony. I am hoping that there will be no fault-finding. I am hoping that there will be no criticisms and gossip and especially any kinds of assumptions, presumptions and/or judgments regarding our decisions and preferences. I am hoping that there will be no backtalk or complaining to each other about our motivations. I am hoping that there will be no veiled comments, insults that masquerade as jokes or attempts to "put one over me" or any member of my immediate family. I am hoping that everyone will just be happy to be together and forget about competing or other garbage.
Today, I found out that my step-sister who is only 42 years old has liver cancer. She has baseball-sized tumors in her liver that they have identified as malignant. There are still gargantuan tumors left in her liver and the doctors simply closed her up and sent her home. The doctors still have to figure out what kind of cancer they are up against. It feels so grim right now and I feel dark all over.
Also this morning, a close family friend took her father to undergo routine colonoscopy. They found colon cancer and they asked him to surrender to surgery ASAP---possibly today. It also sounds grim.
Family is so important. Life is so unpredictable. And we are at the age where things happen. There are three children who may lose their mother. My step-sister may not live to see her grandchildren love her, touch her, hug her, give her kisses. She is so young and had so many aspirations. She was on the track of improving her life. Now she is stopped right on her tracks. I am devastated.
There is a daughter who may lose her father at a time when she is just getting to know him better and enjoying his company not just as her father but as another human being. He may not see his grandchildren become teenagers. They will not enjoy his company and his affections....his quiet acts of service and sharing. He merely came to town for a short visit from a far away country oceans and times away and now he sits stunned that somewhere in his body, there are alien cells threatening to end his life.
For years and years, I watched as families pass on the many opportunities to communicate love and affection---dangerously failing to foster understanding, harmony and joy that they are in fact, a family. I watch as they deliberately and without thought, pass on the many opportunities to bond, grow and understand each other and instead, demur and choose to be distant, silent or disconnected. I hope that they do not get to the inevitable points in life where they have to be compelled to invest, nurture and care for every relationship that they have been gifted with.
As I ponder on the seeming inequities of life, I am beset with a sudden sadness and a sense of foreboding. Suddenly, going to a wedding where I can be shredded to pieces doesn't sound too bad at all. At least for right now.
