First Kidder

About a year ago when I first started chemo treatment, I had a dream that I walked Jonas to kindergarten. It was a very comforting dream, because at the time, I wasn't sure if I would live long enough to ever be able to walk him to school.

Yesterday, my dream came true. I tucked some freshly sharpened pencils and new erasers in Jonas' backpack, sat Liam and Graham in the double stroller, and walked Jonas to school. I watched him skip happily in front of me, and we didn't even make it to the school before my chin started quivering.

He lined up with all the other kindergartner's, and he beamed with excitement as I joined the parental paparazzi, snapping pictures from every possible angle. Behind my sunglasses, a couple tears escaped, but I held it together to avoid being stereotyped as a "first-kidder." But as soon as the teacher led all the kids into the school, I dashed away, and made it to the street before I started sobbing. It wasn't just that my first little boy was grown up enough to go to school - it was that I lived to see him go to school. I said a silent prayer on my way home, thanking God for allowing me to take my little Jonas to school.

When I got home, I went in the back yard with Liam and Graham, and I lay down under a tree. It's become one of my favorite things to do. When I was getting radiation treatments, on the ceiling above the machine, they had a picture of flowering cherry branches hanging over a blue sky. It was winter at the time, and I used to imagine that it was springtime, that I was actually lying beneath a tree, and that I was well. Now that I am well, I love to lie under trees and look at the sky through the branches. Call me weird if you want. I guess I just appreciate simple pleasures more than I used to...


Life is good, I feel great, and I continue to hope for the best!