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| Excuse me, sir... |
| 02.26.05 (10:41 am) [edit] |
Sometimes I don't think that it can get any worse and then I am proven wrong. With each new day, God pushes me for more. I feel as if my heart is being taken apart with a rusty knife and a melon scoop. I am still walking, dressing, breathing and making coffee. Sometimes, I can form a coherent sentence. So, I guess that He hasn't given me more than I can bear.
Perhaps, someday, you will find me walking down a city street with a Target shopping bag containing my underwear, a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and a can of generic tuna; muttering, "excuse me sir, have you seen my life?"
Ali would hate that. There must be a Bloomingdale's bag around here somewhere.
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9 Comments
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| Sinking to Re-runs... |
| 02.24.05 (8:51 am) [edit] |
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I have the urge to write but not the energy. Still in need of a long winter's nap. We are currently in a holding pattern... which is difficult emotionally, but, I still have my girl with me so... can't ask for more than that.
Will update you more soon, in the meantime, you can double click on the 2004 ARCHIVES to the left if you care to. I like September's entries the best.
Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on this page and the Caringbridge page. It lifts my spirits tremendously...can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
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8 Comments
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| Twenty-six months of winter. |
| 02.16.05 (10:54 pm) [edit] |
"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable." Helen Keller.
The black, white, and gray of winter has seeped in under the doorways and is permeating the house like dense fog. Occasionally, a splash of color will pierce the status quo… a bouquet of red tulips or a foil wrapped piece of candy.
I long for Spring; for green and the smell of hyacinth. I long for resurrection.
I have been travelling this route through Purgatory for over 26 months. I have learned that just because the road you traveled was long, dark and fraught with danger does not guarantee that the next phase of the journey will find you skipping through a field of daisies. Sometimes, the most difficult roads to get through are not those that you anticipate.
For me, the most challenging roads are not where the grade is steep or the terrain is rocky, but the road that goes on for miles, flat and unchanging.
Death has its own agenda. It will not be slowed down any more than it will be rushed. It plays tricks on your mind and tortures you with its uncertainty. In a frenzy you attempt to gather all of your moments and your memories; like trying to save precious photographs from a fire. I love you. I love you. I love you.
A few nights ago Ali woke up and didn’t know me. She thought I was trying to kill her and tried to flee the bed… even though she cannot stand by herself. I had to pull her back in as she repeatedly punched my face and screamed for help. The next day she remembered and apologized, ending with, "I love you, mama". As I looked deeply into her eyes, I realized that while I have been busy mourning the Ali that I see bright eyed and smiling in photographs, I have not fully appreciated the Alison lying in front of me. An innocent, vulnerable, child-like Ali who is fighting for her very life, yet, still has not lost her empathy or sense of humor.
I was challenged by a road that I thought to be flat and unchanging, but, I was wrong. The road was changing, just not in the direction that I was looking for. Sometimes when life disappoints us we let the gray seep in and stop looking for strands of color. By mourning what wasn’t I failed to see the beauty in what I had in front of me.
We had a good night tonight. We laughed together… Ali, Megan and I. It wasn’t like it used to be… but still, it was a burst of color on a very dark night in February.
I know that the time is coming when my mourning will be profound and justified. I am terrified of going there, but I have no choice.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
I have endured twenty-six months of winter. Spring can’t be too far away.
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19 Comments
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| The beauty of the soul... |
| 02.09.05 (10:12 pm) [edit] |
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy misfortune after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper. --Aristotle
Last Tuesday night wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and a yellow Chrysanthemum behind her ear, Alison Haley Cloud walked into the Crossing Café with her two best friends, drank a Jones Soda and spit in the face of cancer.
Had someone told me that morning that Ali would ever again walk out our door I would have thought them cruel. Yet, there she sat, drinking a soda, radiant in her victory and oblivious to the fact that her very presence added value to the lives of everyone around her.
Barely able to walk or speak for days, Ali insisted on seeing Gaby who helped her with her make-up and hair. Megan ran from room to room looking for things that Ali needed and when the room was cleared for me to get her dressed, her beautiful brown eyes pleaded with me, as she said quite clearly and with a determined spirit, "I need to leave this house. I want to go to the Crossing".
There were a million reasons why we shouldn’t go… but they all paled in comparison to the one reason that we should.
Kayla showed up as we were getting ready and cancelled her plans so that she could join Ali at the coffeehouse. We held her up, tucking away the tubes for her pain medication, and headed toward the stairs. On the way out her door she stopped at her wall vase and asked for a flower, which she placed behind her ear.
All eyes were on Ali as we led her slowly from the back door of the Crossing to the couch that she had set her sights on. I left her alone with her friends and held back my tears as I watched her from across the room. I barely recognized my little girl. Cancer is a cruel disease.
The Hospice nurse later told us that Ali’s trip to the Crossing had the same effect on her as running a Marathon would have on any one of us. That night, she moaned and cried because her body ached. Her body ached but her spirit soared. She had done the unthinkable.
Ali’s soul has never stopped shining. Misfortune after misfortune has been heaped upon her tender shoulders and she has never buckled, never faltered, never let the light go out of her eyes. Her body was failing her but her spirit would not. Never again will I be the same. How can I ever expect to lead an ordinary life when I have been witness to a hero wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt and a yellow Chrysanthemum?
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16 Comments
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Grace, beauty, humor, strength.
Alison Haley Cloud
Nov. 16, 1987-March 1, 2005
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
