Mother and Child Reunion

We are at TGI Friday's and I am listening to Taryn tell me stories about her friends and classmates at Maryland. She doesn't like to talk about her classes or what she is learning or her grades or her professors when she is with me. And no matter how much I ask about her academics she will find a way to turn the conversation back to her social life, to shopping, to sports, to music, to movies, to family...to anything except school.

When she was in high school (around the time I was realizing that my cancer was treatable but incurable) this drove me nuts - I thought she was unfocused, unambitious, squandering her potential, not properly preparing for the future, putting herself in a position where her choices would be limited despite her obvious intelligence. I was fearful every day that she would be unprepared to deal with life without me in it; that she would be unsuccessful; that she would end up married to some loser and working at King Kullen barely able to make ends meet. It has taken me several years to realize just how much she has prepared herself for a life without me and how much my illness has guided her actions.

Her friends - they are the family she will need to lean on when the time comes that I finally succumb to either cancer or its complications. As much as she loves her father and Warren and Ian and her aunts and uncles and cousins, the reality is she (along with all our children) is forging her own life and her own path. She will spend more time with her friends in the next few years than she will with us. Is it any wonder that those connections are of paramount importance to her? That she is compelled to work diligently on creating and maintaining those relationships? That making sure there is a network of love and caring surrounding her, protecting her, supporting her takes precedence over tests and essays? She (subconsciously) has been quite successful defining her priorities and executing a plan to achieve them. I just didn't get that at first.

I am a planner, a scheduler, an achiever, an organizer, a saver, a list-maker, a prioritizer. None of which was enough to stave off cancer. Taryn understands this all too well and so lives for the moment. She has one simple desire - to be happy today. And although she knows that's not always how the day turns out (yes, sometimes she does have to go to class even when she doesn't want to!), she starts each day believing that she can achieve happiness. And knowing what I know now about the nature of my disease, particularly the likelihood that it will shorten my life significantly, I often wish I'd been a little more like her, not because I'm particularly unhappy (quite the opposite actually) but because I didn't always appreciate the here and now.

Which is why, driving down to Maryland today, I made it a point to look around and enjoy the brushstrokes of the day - the greening of the leaves, sunlight reflecting crystals off the river, cotton puffs of clouds lazily traversing the sky, yellow mums blooming in the "M" on the campus green. I tuned my iPod to my favorite songs, I sang out loud, I ate as many jellybeans as I wanted, and I happily and proudly listened to Taryn tell me stories about her friends and classmates at Maryland.

Prayers for John, Donovan, Brennan, Gavin and the entire Billings family who are mourning the loss of Sherri this past week. We hope they are comforted by their many memories and the knowledge that she is safe in God's loving arms. A few extra prayers as well for Charles Doonan - may recovery become a realization very soon so that his family can once again enjoy his company.

Blessings and Love to All.