-22

When I woke up, igoogle said it was -22 here. I think we get to have a snow day if it's -20. Now it's just -18 though, and I guess that's warm enough for little children to stand in the dark waiting for buses. Cold hands (feet, noses and ears) warm heart, I guess.

Some links to some things that might be helpful

I'm just kind of collecting websites about scholarships, grants, and help available and I'll be adding them here, so I can find them again later.

http://cancerforcollege.org/Scholarship_Info.html

http://www.mariolemieux.org/

http://imtooyoungforthis.org/community/i2y-money.shtml

http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=4599

In Sickness and in Health

They both thought that she would be the first one to spend any time in the hospital, and then just for something fun like a new baby. I thought that nobody in my little family would ever get cancer because we have no family history, and no riskiness. Since Thomas was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, it has been a very long three weeks, including a couple of surgeries, a chemotherapy treatment, an ER visit, and a hospital stay. But you can't argue with a 100 percent cure rate. We have all learned a lot about PET scans, neutropenia, and ABVD. Something I already knew was how wonderful Caley is, how brave Thomas is, and how much my children love each other. A lot of people this week thought that the presidential inauguration was the thing to watch, but I saw something even better when a prayer was answered in front of my eyes.

Unfortunable

Today (since we have the late Church schedule, and I have time to think about things on Sunday mornings) I was thinking. When exactly did the word "unfortunable" come to be in our family vocabulary? I knew that Emily had written it in an email to Thomas when he was in Hungary, so I went searching through old emails. It was fun reading through a few of them again. I had used the search feature, but the only "unfortunable" emails that came up were ones using the word, but not the original.

I found it finally, Emily had originally spelled it "unfortanable." So here it is, the genesis of a word, and a sincerely sweet message from a 3rd grade girl to her big brother.

June 12, 2005

"And now, a few words from Emily:

Well mom pretty much covered everything. I'm in down-town dance studio! Today in primary I had a girl in my class named Emily too! Her sister Jessica was in my class too, and they have younger siblings a little brother and sister . They're all from Palm Springs, California where they're was an earth quake! How unfortanable! The Chinese torists said hi to me . I'm rrunning out of things to say ! I love you ! Do good over there! Well I have to go to bed now! Good night! Oh wait!! Good morning! See ya ! Bye! Love ya! Bu bye!"

Also in this email, we sent Adam's address in Rancho Cucamonga, (he had slept through the earthquake), Marisa just left for Girl's State, Aunt Lynne stopped by with a bus load of Chinese tourists on their way to Yellowstone, and Kerry and I were getting ready to leave for our 25th anniversary trip to Maui.

A Righteous Battle

Since the new year began, we have been reading the daily message from Gordon B. Hinckley's book "Stand A Little Taller" before we say our bedtime prayer. Tonight Kerry asked me to read, and so I opened it up to see that the message for today was "A Righteous Battle."

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil," begins the scripture from Ephesians. The message from Pres. Hinckley tells us that "we are involved in an intense battle."

So far, most days the messages seem to pertain to what is going on, right now, in our family. These three have stood out in the past week -
January 6 (the day we went to the oncologist): Faith Overcomes
January 7 : The Power of Prayer
January 8 : Healing Power

I'm glad that I had the inspiration to look for this little book that Kerry gave me for Valentine's day in 2002, it's good to have a little daily dose of something that reminds us that there is no obstacle too great, no challenge too difficult, if we have faith.

The Starting Line

At the St. George Marathon in 2002, Thomas and I got off of the bus that drove us 26.2 miles out of town and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. We were not going to be running together, because he was fast and I wasn't, but at the starting line, in all of the excitement and in the middle of 5000 other runners, just before the gun went off, he gave me a hug and said something like, "I love you mom, see you at the finish line!"

As I ran along at my 5 hour pace, I scanned every aid station I passed, just to make sure he wasn't there. I wasn't sure how well prepared he was for running a marathon, at the age of 16 and with his longest run ever being about 5 miles. I was incredibly relieved when I got close to town and saw the suburban, and he was in it, and he had the medal around his neck. It was actually better than finishing the race myself to see that he had made it safe and sound.

Today is a different sort of starting line for Thomas, and while I won't be running the same race, I will be cheering from the sidelines.

My Blue Italian Lake

To My Child

You are the trip I did not take,
You are the pearls I could not buy.
You are my blue Italian lake,
You are my piece of foreign sky.