Your Friends - Part TWO

You Find Out Who your Friends are....PART TWO

I know I “went off” on the frustrations of dealing with friends and family. I feel bad that it came across as pretty negative. I feel the need to make amends...

On the positive side, discovering your true and new friends more than makes up for the disappointments. Way...WAY more.

The day after Rich was discharged from his very first hospital stay we received an edible bouquet from Keith and Angel. Rich and I both shed some tears of joy and gratitude with that. His appetite was shot and this gift, between being beautiful, fresh and delectable was perfect beyond words. We were like two kids at Christmas and he ate a good third of it the first day. Two days later he savored the last bite.

Some messages on the machine simply stated that we were being prayed for and “please don't feel you need to call back unless there is some errand or chore we can do for you.”

After his surgery in May, Rob Pyett, a high school buddy that Rich had recently reconnected with brought him lunches, which made it easier for me to be at work. In fact Rob and his wife Mary sat in the waiting room with me during surgery, and during recovery, and kept me from assaulting the resident who wouldn't pull the catheter that was causing writhing pain in Rich's bladder. One day the Pyetts brought Rich lunch, got him comfortably seated on the back patio and proceeded to spread eight yards of mulch over his beloved garden. No easy task since the entire load had been dumped in the front yard and had to be moved, one wheelbarrow at a time to the back, around winding paths, in sun and heat.

One day Terry Nelson left a covered dish and bouquet of flowers on my front doorstep.

Denise Ellsworth put the word out to her network of Master Gardeners and within three months time Rich received over 300 cards in the mail from all over the United States--sending hope, prayers and encouragement in the lovely way that gardeners speak to gardeners.

I don't want this entry to be a grocery list of all the acts of kindness we've experienced. You'd “have to be there” or it's plain long and boring. I just felt the need, today, to focus on the positive side of this because sometimes the pain and exhaustion threatens to rule and I find that the best thing to do at these times is to switch gears and remember the joy and magic that we have been blessed with. I have not even scratched the surface of the kindness and blessings we have received.

I hope that you will want to continue this journey with me. I have so much to tell you that I believe will be helpful, not just for cancer, but maybe for any struggle that feels likely to crush your spirit. When first dealt the blow, you reach and search desperately for answers, help and hope. Most of what is available seems focused on the “patient”. A few sources deal with the “care-giver”. Like we are two separate people. We're not two separate people. The cancer is localized in Rich's physical body, but in truth, we both have Stage Four Pancreatic Cancer. Unfortunately, few people seem to understand that except me and Rich, and the true friends who recognize and honor that we are One.