So helpless, but I've gotta do something...

Is there a single person on earth who has not been touched by cancer in some way, shape, or form?  If so...I doubt they will remain untouched for long.

My first "touches" were in childhood - a grandfather with colon cancer and a grandmother with breast cancer and several occurrences of skin cancer.  I was fortunate at that point - cancer did not take either of them from me.  There were other acquaintances after that - but no one I knew very well.

Then it reared it's ugly head a little too close to home...my friend and (near) neighbor, a young mom about my age, with children the same age as mine...died of lung cancer.

"Helpless" is the word that I now began associating with cancer.  After watching this  young mother go through all the treatments and suffering - after praying and pleading and praying and pleading with God some more - then seeing her 4 young children and husband suffer the loss to cancer in the end...it's just such a helpless feeling.

There were soon others that also lost the cancer battle - a couple of young dads in our community, uncles on both sides of the family, and a cousin only a few years older than myself.  It was getting vicious.

The next touch was more of a body slam.  The unthinkable happened when our friends called in tears to say their 15 year old daughter had just been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer.  She was my daughter's best friend and "bosom buddy"...and also cousin by marriage.  They had been friends before they were cousins (her mom-by-marriage was my husband's cousin.)  Her biological mother had been my friend, the one who died of lung cancer just a few years before.

Could I loathe cancer any more than this?

A few days before my daughter's high school graduation - cancer took her life-long, best friend away from her.  Now when she comes home from college...she goes to a cemetery to visit her.  There will never be anything right about that.  As a mom - I feel so desperately helpless as my daughter heads out the door to go visit a grave.

"Good haircut, mommy!"

And then, less than a year later, cancer touched us again.  My sister-in-law, younger than myself, is battling stage 4 breast cancer that has also moved into her liver.  She's the sister that never forgets a birthday, the one who is always so loving, supportive and positive.  The one who always seems thrilled to open her home to our large family, so we can have fantastic vacations in places like Orlando, Austin and Houston...or so we could hang out for a few days with the young girl receiving weeks of radiation treatments in Houston.  Her and my brother have a beautiful, 6 year old daughter.  And I, once again, pray and plead and feel helpless.

I'm so sick and tired of feeling helpless.  It's time to do something more.  It's not much of anything, really...but it's something.  First and foremost - I have to keep praying and believing that cancer can LOOSE!  Secondly - I'm joining in the bigger fight.

I've given to the American Cancer Society occasionally; supported others that take the time to participate in a "Relay for Life," but that's about as far as I've taken it.  Now, I'm stepping up.  I may not be able to kick cancer myself - I may not be able to kick cancer together with all of the whole American Cancer Society - but by golly I'm going to do something. 

Thus, in honor of my sister-in-law, Jennifer Cox, and in memory of sweet Amanda Joy McDaniel, I've formed "Team Jennifer and Amanda" to participate in an upcoming Relay for Life.  After the first day, over half of the goal had been raised, so I doubled the goal.  We still haven't made that goal - but I'm hopeful.

Obviously - others feel strongly about this cursed disease and the lives of innocent people it has touched.  If you're one of them, feel free to visit that team page and give a donation, purchase a luminary in honor or memory of a loved one, or just be thankful that there are so many fighting this battle.  A battle that we all hope and pray will some day end victoriously, so "helpless" will no longer come to mind when the word cancer is breathed.

So Proud of That...

 Nate has such a big heart - a heart for the world.  He's given months of his time over the past several years to go serve overseas on lots of different projects - most of them on Engineering Ministries International (eMi) teams.  eMi is a fantastic, world-wide ministry that is as near to a perfect match for Nate's big heart as anything he's ever come across.

Nate has worked on eMi teams from Guatemala to India, doing everything from surveying how deep a lake was in Rwanda to hijacking a taxi from their drugged driver in order to keep the team safe while traveling in India.  Most of these trips have involved helping children...a children's home in Guatemala, a site for a school in a remote village of Ghana, an orphanage in India, etc.

One of the neatest projects he's been a part of was in Rwanda - working for Kanukuk Kamps on their Kids Across Africa Camp.  For anyone that's watched "Hotel Rwanda" or heard the stories of the terrible genocide that occurred there...it's hard NOT to get excited about a camp where these children can be carefree kids for a few days, have 3 nutritional meals a day and enjoy having lots of staff to love on them, share the Good News with them, and make sure they have the experience of a lifetime.

In one week's time, this eMi Rwanda team was able to do an amazing amount of work.  I love to watch the video they produced by the end of that week.  Considering that they started with just a leveled off top of a hillside by a lake, clueless as to  where the property boundaries were - and finished with a conceptual video and plan for a well-designed facility made to fit perfectly on the less-than-ideal, limited hill-top...I can't help but feel proud.  Proud to be the wife of a man who loves to donate his time to such projects...proud to be the mom of amazing daughters who love to "tag along" and help...and proud to be a child of The King.  A King who has a heart for the poorest of the poor in this world, and shares a portion of that heart with mere little, insignificant people like us.  It makes me smile from the inside out.  :-)

O, Those Melancholy Moments

I think there was an old song entitled, "Melancholy Baby" or some such thing.  I'm finding as my "babies" grow up into young adults - I'm the Melancholy Mama a little more often than I should be.
Take tonight, for instance.  My fourth daughter, Tabitha, just left a few moments ago to meet up with friends at someone's house, so they could all finish getting ready for their annual Spring Formal event.  A seventeen year old's "dream" night...getting to look and feel like a princess.  Why would that make me melancholy, for heaven's sake?

It has something to do with the fact that her older three sisters are all grown and gone.  Always before...for the past 6 or 7 years...when prom or spring formal rolled around, there were a "group" of sisters around. Giggling, painting each others nails, primping and curling and spraying, asking each others opinions about how this looks, or what if I did my hair like this?  It's always been so much fun - so much so, that often they've had friends who also come over and join in the big event of "getting ready."
 
So, when Tabitha came home this week and said, "Some of my friends are going to so-in-so's house to get ready for formal.  Do you mind if I join them?"  I had to force a smile as I said, "Not at all - you'll have fun."

Someone else's house...someone who has more teen daughters around home than we do...is the fun place to go get ready.

She stuck around long enough to let me style her hair...that was fun.  But there were no older sisters saying, "Oh wait - maybe you should do this instead."  There wasn't much giggling.  No fancy dresses swishing around, getting in everyone's way.  All the dressing and make-up work was going to happen at the friend's house.

That's how it should be...I shouldn't always be the mom who gets to have all the fun.

Am I regretful, depressed, or wasting my time moping about the simple fact that children do grow up?  Not at all. Yet here I sit, wondering why the years keep flying by so quickly.