Yesterday was the second time this week that I have been mistaken for a dude.
Granted, these people were not studying me intently - and I am six feet tall - but whew.
When I was in college studying to be a news reporter, I did not use my first name in my byline because I did not want readers to have any sense of gender slant. So, to the consternation of at least one editor, I insisted on using just "R" before my last name. Now I am feeling amused to find myself longing for recognition that I am a girl!
Thanks to some powerful antibiotics, I am finally kicking the nasty flu bug that has hung on for three weeks. UGH: Three weeks of thick snot by the bucketful and yucky phlegm-filled coughing. At least once I have wondered if this was actually my cancer metastasizing in my lungs. Good times, huh?
(My husband told me sternly: "You do NOT have lung cancer." We'll hope not.)
Earlier this week I was invited to help decorate some shirts for some friends who are running in the Alaska Women's Run this Saturday in Anchorage. They are running in my honor, and quite wonderfully they are using my catch phrase: Embrace the Suck ~ God has a Purpose.
How terrific is that?When I got home that evening, my hubby and girls were finishing up a backyard bonfire. I related to JB how surreal it was to see those shirts, and most especially, my initials stuck in a breast cancer ribbon. You would think that six months of riding this crazy train would make this feel REAL. But no. Not really.
I experienced some more surreality tonight. After the girls were in bed, JB and I were in the yard to plant some peonies, lupine and bleeding hearts. An SUV pulled up. The driver works in the same field as my husband - he parked and the occupants spilled out. The kids checked out the chickens, the driver toured JB's future greenhouse site and the elderly man hung close to me.
We talked about his 45 years in Alaska, his current home in Arizona and his travels across Germany, Belgium and France. He told me he was bad luck - his first wife died. Then he had a girlfriend, but she died following a stroke. I told him that wasn't bad luck - that was life. Even so, I was surprised at how openly he spoke to me.
It wasn't until they left that I learned that the driver had lost his first wife to breast cancer six years ago. She was 35 years old - three years younger than me. The sweet old man was her father. The kids were the ones she left behind when she died - they would have been close to my own girls' ages. In fact, the 13-year-old girl shares the same birthday as Bella.
I wonder what God's purpose was in tonight's encounter. I certainly got a peek into the lives of these people who had lost their wife, momma and daughter. What did that sweet old man think as he looked at me, clearly bald, missing eyelashes and eyebrows under my snappy little hat? I'm sure he missed his girl.
Sigh. I wish I had known. It's probably good that I didn't - I would have given that man a big hug and probably the kids, too. And who knows if that's what they really would have wanted or needed.
Chemo No. 12 is tomorrow - five left. F-I-V-E!!! Last go around, a dear friend came and sat all the way through my appointment with me. I almost wept when she walked in and sat down beside me - these appointments are not fun, and I am 3,000 percent certain she could have chosen 100 other ways to spend her time that were more fun. I am humbled to the core by her love, and the love of so many others who are loving us to the "other side" of this.
Love the shirts.
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