I stopped by my parents' house briefly this afternoon for the first time in several days, and I've pretty much been a wreck since. I had Steve Kirkpatrick (of Steve Kirkpatrick Designs here in Cleveland) embroider a couple of sweatshirts for Dad for Christmas--they say "chemosabe" on them. He saw some dude in the chemo infusion room wearing one, and he loved it, so Mom suggested that as a Christmas gift. So today, the shirts were ready and I went ahead and dropped them off with Dad because he has been so cold lately, and making him wait three more days just so I could wrap them up and put them under a tree seemed like a stupid reason for him to continue being cold.
I walked in the door, and instead of lying or sitting in his recliner, he was lying on the couch buried in blankets and honestly, he looked half-dead. He barely opened his eyes when I walked in--just enough to smile at the shirts.
Friends...there is a fine line between being pessimistic and being realistic. We have all been trying very hard to be realistic while at the same time not losing hope. I say that so that you will understand that what I am going to say next is not being said in a spirit of pessimism but of realism. We essentially feel at this point that the six to twelve month time frame we were given is much too optimistic, based on what we are seeing from Dad.
We will know more tomorrow after test results, and even more next Tuesday after he meets with the nurse practitioner (his oncologist will be out of town), and I will update you again then. As for now, please continue to pray--that if a miracle is not in the cards, that at least his suffering will be minimal.
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I will pray for those things you ask, Holly.
After Christmas 1999 my mother found two lovely white porcelaine "Snowbabies" tree decorations that she had ordered and put away, then forgotten. She tucked them away in her Christmas box in the closet.....
.....Christmas 2000 was approaching, my first without her because she had passed two months earlier in October. I opened her Christmas boxes to use some of her ornaments. The two Snowbabies were banded together with a note in her handwriting that read, "For Christmas 2000." Was that representative of her optimism, or was it realism knowing that I would find the note?
Christmas 2008. I decorated the tree and placed the Snowbabies there, using them as I have each year since 2000. As some days passed I noticed a tinkling sound when I'd walk near the tree (our house is old, floors too), so I finally made an investigation to see if I'd placed two ornaments too closely together. Then I saw it. The Snowbaby that is designed to look like its floating on a cloud is lying on its stomach and playing a horn. On the bough where I placed it the tip of the horn extends just to the very edge of one of the white tree lights. With the slightest step in the area, the Snowbaby's bugle taps the glass light, making this sweet faint tinkling sound....
These are the kinds of miracles you will know, Holly.
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