Carrying Around Hope

If you've read my blog before, you might know my friend Stephanie.  She was diagnosed with cancer almost 5 years ago.  Nine months before she was diagnosed, she agreed (reluctantly) to run my 1st ever marathon with me.  It was 26.2 miles over mountain terrain.  Oof.  We were to run 14 miles up the beast of a mountain and then 12 miles down rocky trails.  We didn't know it at the time, but our training turned into a metaphor for her upcoming battle against the poison in her body.  She used the ridiculous training regime and ridiculous race (FOURTEEN MILES UP A MOUNTAIN PEOPLE, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE WERE THINKING) as her "I can do hard things" mantra.

We trained on hills and trails.  We finished that race.  We have the hardware to prove it.  When my family moved to the east coast, promises were made to celebrate that year.  We wanted to commemorate, remember and keep our friendship alive through our relationship we made with those mountain trails. So we decided we would have a 5 year anniversary hike.  Five years after we conquered that mountain, five years after she conquered cancer.  

So on our family trip back to Utah, we made plans, met at the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon and gave each other a massive hug that made the years apart fill in within moments.  We hopped in her car and drove to the trailhead together.  As we hiked, we caught up.  We talked about our kids.  Our husbands.  Good times.  Hard times.  We talked about aging parents and growing pains.  We talked about what her new normal was after the chemo and years of being on drugs to keep the cancer away.  We talked about Jesus and grace and faith and all the lessons that come from having access to these things.

So our hike through the wildflowers with empty ski lifts above our heads became our quiet celebration of hope.  We paused at the top  to take in the still lake. (Quick pause.  Mosquitos were eating us alive.)  We spontaneously paused in the middle of the trail on the way down and embraced, overcome with gratitude.  We soaked in the view and each other's love.  It was a perfect morning to celebrate.

It also gave me time to think about the grace and faith it takes to face something like cancer.  Because Steph is one of those that is a living beacon of what it means to carry hope around.  But I know women in my life who have lost loved ones, yet the faith, grace, hope and love is still carried around in them.  I've seen it carried around in births of children.  Joyful, exciting times where I know the pain of missing their person must have been so palpable it was an emotion that they never knew existed.  Such joy with such aching. (I actually can't even imagine, I'm feeling inadequate writing about it.) 

I've seen it in wedding plans being made and missing their person so much, sometimes choosing shoes for a rehearsal dinner turns into welling tears of longing, never mind thinking about the actual ceremony.  But still,  hope, grace and love are carried around.  They are choosing those things in life that matter.  That really matter.  They are choosing to create those very bonds of love and life and family that was so very painful to lose.  Knowing the crater of loss, they still choose to fill it up with love.  That's hope.  That's grace--knowing that we can't always choose when we get to say goodbye, but we also know we don't have to do it alone and have access to that Divine Love all around us.

These are the things I thought about as I drove home.  We celebrated life.  The same way we all do whenever we choose to open our hearts to all the beautiful, painful, and exquisitely wonderful parts of loving and living.  

So cheers to you Stephanie!  Cheers to you and cheers to us all who love with our whole hearts, holding nothing back.  Life is beautiful.

In Love

The heart is a funny thing.  It yearns, and swells and breaks and opens.

I fell in love a few months ago.  I fell hard.  It wasn't like the last time.  Last time it was that slow, approachable, don't know what you got until it's gone type of love.  But this last time.  BAM.  Right in my gut and it hasn't let up since.

We moved into this rental house that is near the Annisquam River in Massachusetts.  One recent Saturday morning, I happened to hear a radio story that mentioned a millionaire, who before he became one, had a sister that drown in the river near the turn of the century and once he made his millions, he dedicated most of his time and resources to creating an anti-gravity device, because he was convinced that is why she drown.  Because of gravity.  

I remember looking out my window that Saturday morning, watching the ice caps flow with the current tide.  I watched the river for a few moments and thought about that man over a hundred years ago.  I smirked.  Not at his heartache or loss.  I can't imagine.  But because my bones tingled a little.  I felt like gravity--a force of nature--is the exact thing that brought me to this town.  My new love.

I married an adventurer.  I've already acquiesced to the fact that we will always be that family making plans, trying new things and "settling down" may be a relative term I will have make up my own definition to.  It's taken me a while to say this comfortably and without exasperation and hands tossed in the air like a frustrated shop keeper looking for a lost key.  This is my lot.  This is our lot.  And it's a good one.

We have somehow ended up in this old fishing town north of Boston, Gloucester, Massachusetts.  (2 things. #1: it pronounced glos-ter if you're not from here, glos-tah if you're a native.  #2: I'm still working on trying to spell Massachusetts without using spell check.  Don't tell my 4th grade teacher...or my mom.  Hi mom!)

Cheap winter rent and the lure of the ocean is how we found it.  It wasn't on our radar when making plans for our trek east.  I trusted Chris when he picked a spot to bring the rest of our brood on one of his solo trips here.  We arrive, unpack a few suitcases, try to get as settled as you can when you've just sold 75% of your belongings and are sleeping in something of a summer vacation rental.  In the winter.

Our first Sunday here, we took a drive.  "You have to see the coast line," he tells me.  With everyone piled in the van, we wander past shops and old homes.  We talk about the fishing history, the Perfect Storm history, the oldest seaport in North America history.  It's a cool place to be if you like history.

Then we come around this bend.  And my heart stopped.  badaBeat, badaBeat, badaBeat, badaBOOM. And without warning, tears flowed quietly and quickly down my cheeks.  Everything clicked.  Everything was clear.  If anyone tells you they don't believe in love striking unexpectedly, you can tell them this story.  Because I fell in love with this old, cranky town On. The. Spot.  I don't know what biological thing occurred or neurons fired or strange pheromones of the ocean air got a hold of me.  But I'm telling you I love this place.  Love.  It's old.  Real old.  Like 1623 and 1973 mixed up old.  The roads are terrible.  There are abandoned fisheries right in middle of town, which is also in the middle of the beach.  Nearly every grocery store employee I've met here either hates me, or their job, I can't decide which.  The local movie theatre is, umm, dilapidated, run down quaint?  It's been winter ever since we got here.  Not just winter.  But the town has run out of funds to plow the roads and keep them salted kind of winter.  Like, it feels 10 degrees below zero because the wind won't stop blowing winter.  But I don't care.  Because I am in love.

I still laugh a little when I think that perfect San Diego was also in the running for this new job.  Did I mention that?  San Diego!  Summer year round San Diego! Poppin sunsets like candy San Diego!  Temps below 60 degrees require sweaters and hot chocolate San Diego!  We could have picked let's go the beach in swimsuits and swim in the water while the turkey cooks during Thanksgiving San Diego!  But the western current wasn't meant for us.  We were lured, pulled, beckoned to this cold, easterly, storm ridden peak of the state.

And after two days of living in it, I found love.  So this is where we stay.

Until the next, continental shift.