Insanity

Can you tell my heart has not been in this lately? It has been a really difficult month with the cancer thing. Honey is still home from work and probably will be for at least 2 more weeks. Who knew a little mole could cause such havoc? They removed all the cancer and the lymph nodes they removed were clean. So big deal huh? the incision on the arm is horrid, got infected, and is healing with big holes in it. Not going to be pretty! The armpit incision is pretty nasty but healing nicely. So it's been pretty hard to concentrate and focus. One of these days I will attempt to write some more. In the meantime, if you are new to this blog please do me a huge favor and read from the beginning post!
My best to you all.

The Weight of Glory

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too

deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the

proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest

and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted

to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the

light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all

our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a

real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost

the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden." C. S. Lewis The Weight of Glory

He is looking at us

A grieving young father and his two children sit before a television set in their home after a makeshift dinner. The children have been staying with Grandmother while their mother has slowly slipped away in a lingering illness; now they and their father are home again after her funeral. The little girl drops off to sleep and is carried to her bed. The little boy fights off sleepiness until he finally asks his father if tonight, just tonight, he can sleep with him in his bed. As the two lie silently in the dark the lad speaks: “Daddy are you looking at me?’ “Yes, son,” the father replies, “I am looking at you.”

The boy sighs and, exhausted, sleeps. The father waits a time and then, weeping, cries out in the dark, in anxious anguish: “God, are you looking at me? If you are, maybe I can make it. Without you, I know I can’t.”
 

Our Heavenly Father is looking at us. He loves us and he wants us to choose the path that leads us to happiness here and eternal life hereafter.

Tender Mercies

So we went to visit the oncologist. The dermatologist told us it was only .35 mm deep and that that was good. We have been blissfully ignorant and not really worried even joking about him having cancer. Until Tuesday. As they began to tell us all the gory details I began to feel sick and had to fight back the tears...after all I am the support team (scary huh!). I can't believe all they will be doing. Monday he will go in and be injected with dye so they can find the Sentinel lymph nodes in his left arm. Once found they will be removed. The next day he goes in for the surgery on the melanoma which is done under general anesthesia. they make about an 8" incision in a football shape and remove all tissue within 1.5 cm of the tumor. They continue removing tissue until they have that margin covered then they close it up. On Wednesday we go back to find out the diagnosis. To top it off it turns out the biopsy did not get to the actual depth so we don't know how deep it is. Right now they are classifying it as a stage 1B. If all is well after Wednesday he will go back every 4 months for a year to have his entire body checked. Once you have one melanoma the chances of having another increases dramatically. After that year he will be rechecked every 6 months for 5 years. We won't even address what happens if the results show cancer in the lymph nodes!
It is very surreal to sit there and listen to the whole cancer thing. I have to say it was very traumatic for both of us. The poor guy had no idea any surgery would be involved let alone the extent of it. He was overwhelmed. He kept telling me how sorry he is that I have to go through this and thanking me for being there for him!

He was on a trip to Philly this week for just a few hours. He left the day after our traumatic office visit and he forgot his cell phone. It was difficult not to be able to talk. In addition I was hoping he could get with our son and get a blessing while he was there. I wasn't sure how he would feel about that. He borrowed a cell and called me. I told him my thought about him getting a blessing and he seemed open to it. He gave me his hotel phone number and I called my son and gave it to him.
He returned home the next day and I inquired as to whether or not he was able to connect with our son. He said they had connected and our son met him for dinner. When I asked if he got a blessing his demeanor and tone change ....almost reverential as he said that he had given him a very touching blessing. I was grateful to Heavenly Father not only that he would get a blessing but that it would be meaningful to him.

"Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me." Psalm 40:11