'come what may': what I want my boys to know

'In sickness and in health'.

That was what he promised me 12 years ago. To love me and serve me in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better or worse. He vowed it. Sealed it with a ring and kissed me in front of all our family and friends.

I've always known he meant it, but the last few years Huz has had to walk the talk. The 'in sickness' is a bigger part of the story than what I guessed it would be.

And it got me thinking. About what I would say to my tribe of boys as they look forward to one day standing next to the girl of their dreams, and putting that ring on her finger and vowing sweeping statements with a heart of love.

True, Brave & Soul: Dad is showing you everyday what it is to be a man of God and stand alongside his bride and love and honour her in 'sickness and in health'. He is the one to watch, the one to model your character on. There are many many men who will run at the first whiff of trouble. The first glimpse of difficulty in their marriage: perhaps the routine monotony of the everyday or the lack of appreciation for how difficult their life is, and some men bolt. 

So instead of sticking around for the hard (the super hard) stuff, they use this opportunity to walk away and resume some kinda easier life than what they find themselves locked into.

My boys, know this - your Dad is serving me daily, and honouring me daily as we are together facing my cancer, and as i'm going through chemo for the second time. It's not easy, it's not pretty. However, it is dramatic, life changing, soul wearying and gut wrenching. And your Dad sees it all. Every drop of the pain, every pull of bad news, each and every new 'in slow motion' deterioration and side effect. All of it.

He is the one to find me blubbering on the couch (again) when he gets home from a long day at work, after he has made school lunches and gotten his own tea and tucked you three littles into bed because I'm too exhausted. 

He's the one who sits and listens and holds my hand in his, or my bald head in his arms and works to find the words I need to hear. He is the one who stays up late and finds no relief from the thoughts that come about the future without me.

'In sickness and in health'.

We have had many years of health together. Many years leading youth group together, renovating our house together, playing with our sweet babies (you!) together. Enjoying being with family and friends, going on holidays. Beautiful, long, treasured years. Life has been good to us. God has been good to us. 

But this life is a beautiful, messy one and now we are 'in sickness', and this is where your character will be shown my boys if you choose to marry your girl. And if not 'in sickness' perhaps it will be another kind of hard. 

Whatever it may be you have vowed to be there with her. You have vowed to love her with the love of Christ, and when your own strength fails (or even before it does) you will have the strength of Jesus to draw on for those terrible lonely days when they come.

But don't bolt. Don't skip out on your marriage when the season gets rough and you can't find the convenient answers to solve it all and neaten it up. Stick with your bride. Stick by the vows you made, and trust (even if it's 'cold blooded' trust - the hard trust without the feelings attached) that God has made a way through this hard thing for you both.

And today, when I am light-bulb bald and teary and pale I think back to the vows Dad and I made. The ones I made when my hair was thick, my eyelashes long and my figure slim. When our love was brand new and fresh and so very young. And it sits next to our love now which is deep and full and knows all the cracks and faults. Our love now which has been tested in the days of mundane and the weeks of pain, and the years of joy. Our love now which binds us happily together by a thousand strands of moments together. 

And maybe it's easy for me to say these things to you my boys…I've been the one difficult to live with, bursts of anger come easily to me, and opinions flow out of my mouth strong and heartfelt. Dad is the one to ask about how to love gently and true. Dad is the one who has spurred me on to keep trusting Jesus. Dad is the one who is steady and kind and believes the best in me despite myself. When Dad compliments me I believe him. His integrity is unshakeable. His love reminds me of Jesus' unfailing love.

So boys of mine - True, Brave and Soul - take your vows, and woo your girl. Vow to love and serve her in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better or worse. And then seal it with a ring, and make sure you kiss her!

Mum xx

south rd

The trip to Tennyson Cancer Centre takes about 20 mins from our place, maybe less if there's not much traffic to speak of. The bleak grey of South Rd stretches forward without much fuss. It's symbolically drab, depressingly familiar. I'm carving out a more elaborate, inconvenient route to chemo so I don't have to look at its ugly face so often.

The white lines can blur as silence fills our car when conversation won't come.

Huz and I have travelled it's path after devastating appointments with Dr K. Sometimes following scans, often times after blood work or chemotherapy have been completed. Many times travelling back home knowing I had to head back the very next morning for more chemo or another blood transfusion.

I'm getting sick of South Rd.

The morning of our appointment with Dr K this week I blurted out to Huz the secret thought I'd mulled over and over in the dark before the sun crept into our bedroom. 

'All this chemo, and I am so wiped out from it that I'm not really living anyway. I don't want to keep doing it'.

And it had hung there, my honesty air drying (feeling more like dirty laundry).

And it couldn't be answered, this secret thought of mine, for all at once there was (aren't there always) three littles to attend to. Littles to help find school uniforms for, pour cornflakes out into bowls and find lost socks.

And my words were left to hang out. Words for later - you know the 'later' that real grown-ups speak of; a civilised time in which mature adults pour a glass of wine once the littles are in bed, taking a moment to consider and talk through the aforementioned feelings one declared so rashly earlier on.

oh yeah. That later.

And the appointment came and went, chemo came and went.

And then there was South Rd.

Huz drove. Bit the bullet and dove in. Slow words coming. Gently. He's so gentle with me. How does he know my heart so well when the pain of this sickness skews my words so often, skews my perspective. And he calls it: I'm doing this chemo for the boys. My side effects are manageable. The cancer hasn't shrunk much, but it hasn't grown either. It has been worth walking the long dark trench of the last six months. It has been worth it. 

But we're only halfway down South Rd and the grey drabness clings to me. The skewed thoughts cling to me too. And I'm making a mental list of all the drab, all the grey hard moments that have worn my heart down to this. The mental list that includes the isolation of long lonely days at home without Soul when this would have been our year together, just us. Eyelash-less eyes. A hoarse voice that won't let me sing. Waking up early to take tablets for that clinical trial. Not fitting into my clothes anymore. Being a tired mama all. the. time. Aching for more more more of my loves. Knowing I will leave Huz, leave True, Brave and Soul, leave all our family and my sweet friends. Being perpetually in the middle of the longest goodbye of my life.

But I digress.

I think I let silent (maybe) tears roll, and I pushed past the words themselves because he always does that for me, and I listened for the heart in it. It wasn't hard to hear the heart of love beating out those words for me.

He wants me here as long as he can have me. And if the roles were reversed, oh my I would want that very same thing.

And I want to give that gift. It's just that I'm tired and I'd kinda like to rest from this disease. Plus, I'm not very brave.

But I will keep swallowing pills, keep doing chemo as long as I'm allowed, and keep driving down South Rd.

Because I love my loves.