Everything Happens for a Reason

I still get the shivers when I think of this. Megan had been sent to Iraq. I worked 24/7 in order to keep sane during this time. I was making art, teaching art, selling art. I was accepted into a group art show that was being displayed in Cologne, Germany.

I had put in for a week's leave of absence WITHOUT PAY to go and see my show and partake in the ceremonies and was planning on visiting local schools and see how they taught art. My school denied me the leave. I had been there 10 years and I was devastated. I had a place to stay and had been studying German in preparation for this huge event in my life. It was the one ray of light in a world filled with fear and images of death haunting me in the free moments I allowed my mind to wander.

I was angry, bitter, and I remember crying from a spot inside my heart that was bottomless and full of pain. I had given my soul to my job, never asked for anything, and they told me the students needed me there, so I was denied my request.

Then I got a call from Megan. The Army had granted her a weeks furlough home. It was during the week I would have been in Germany.

I felt like I just had experienced a bolt of insight. Things happen for a reason. Often you may not understand it, or know why it happened for a very long time, but there is indeed a reason for everything in our lives.

I know that even more so now, as Megan's cancer has radically changed our relationship as mother and daughter..in the most positive of ways. No matter the outcome, we are learning to love, respect, help, and understand one another. We are learning to be in control of our lives, and not be victims. We learn to appreciate the smallest of things....the laughter of a child, the blaze of a warm fire, a pot of chicken soup with people we love. Cancer and the fragility of life has given us this fine gift.

I am not a saint; sometimes it is really hard to stay focused on the positive all the time. When I speak to Megan and she is sick for days on end, barely able to get out of bed, I sometimes crumble and lose sight of the good.

Megan is sick again, on antibiotics and was given her treatments yesterday. She has not been out of bed much the past few days and a few of us are helping out with Alanna. The cancer is still disappearing, but it was hard to hear Megan say that 90% of all people who have LMS have reoccurances/metastises. I don't want to think that and I want to believe that she will be in the 10% that won't. I will focus on that 10%. So all of you who do read this, please pray or meditate that she WILL be that 10% who will beat this nasty beast.

And the photo...when Megan was on leave she visited school and talked to my students about being a soldier. Here she is tan, healthy, strong. And she WILL be that way again.

Patti