August 25, 2006
Schools are beginning and swimming pools are closing – the yearly winding down of summer once again takes place. Through the granddaughters, I get to experience the new beginning of another school year as they gather their supplies and prepare to dress in their “coolest” choices to meet the new community of the next nine months. Absolutely nothing is more hopeful than that first day of school with children full of excitement and anticipation bearing new lunch boxes, back packs, shoes, and writing tools. As a teacher, I always had a mixed feeling of delight and regret because I knew that by years’ end, a number of these faces would have lost their shine and would instead look dull or weary because the experience of school had not worked out well for them.
My incredible summer hits the reality check on Monday of next week when I return to seven days of chemotherapy. Other than a noticeable lack of the kind of energy that could carry me through days filled with activities, the last eight weeks were filled with prosaic activities made splendid by the fact that they were there, and I was living within them. Though I have survived six courses of the chemotherapy with their adjunct side effects I have to lecture myself in the hours before dawn when the brain scurries about in fearful circles remembering the hard things. All should go well since I am stronger now than when I began and life has been so very, very good since the drug brought me to remission! We all live in a constant balancing act of hope and apprehension, happiness and sorrow, present life and imagined death – and ultimately, for me, there is the peace of knowing that I am ever in God’s hands.