Hope and a haircut

Two years ago today I got a tearful phone call from my mom. From my mom who doesn't really cry, not much anyway. The call was to tell me that her best friend, my "other mother" had been diagnosed with colon cancer, that the cancer had spread throughout her body, and that the doctors were giving her two years to live. This was incomprehensible. This was simply something I didn't know how to process.

I had no idea what a world without Marilyn looked like. This is a woman who has been in my life since the day I was born. Who has been with us at all the big events and all the small moments. Who has been just as much a part of the creation of my life as anyone else. There was nothing to do at that moment, during that call, except pray and cry. We cried a lot that day.

But I'm not crying today. In fact, today I am celebrating -- I've been thinking of her all day long. I've been thinking about that day, two years ago, and how hopeless I felt. How hopeless we all felt. But today -- two years to the day, Marilyn is doing well. There's been chemo and clinical trials and so much I cannot even fathom. She's been so strong. And I've seen my mom be strong too and it's so encouraging to me. What people can go through. What they can survive.

This week Marilyn got a haircut, which was a pretty exciting day as I hear it. She had to get a haircut because her hair had grown back after the latest round of chemo. If a haircut isn't cause for hope, I don't know what is.

Here's to many, many more years...not just two!