Best Year Of Your Life

Back in the spring I was listening to The Morning Show Tim & Pam on WBGL.  I enjoy listening to their banter in the morning and find it amazing that Christians from all over the world are listening in.  Anyway they were talking about a European study that had recently come out.  The gist of the study was that people felt the happiest and most content at the age of thirty-three.  This study actually upset me quite a bit and there were times over the next few days when it was discussed that it was tempted to turn the show off.

I do understand why in most peoples’ lives this might be true.  Most people in their early thirties have figured out what they are doing with their life.  Most people in their thirties have found a significant other and are enjoying their children.  Most people in their thirties have managed to pay off their college loans.  Most people in their thirties have matured enough to enjoy life.

To me age thirty-three was one of the worst years of my life.  On my thirty-third birthday, I took my then 18 month old daughter and 3-1/2 year old son to the funeral home to say goodbye to my mom, their grandma.  She past a few days before my birthday from stage four brain & lung cancer and was buried the day after my birthday.  Losing a parent tears you up.  I had trying to take care my young children, husband, maternal grandma, sister, and dad as a distraction during my thirty-third year. 

I remember not crying at the funeral, which I think horrified my brother.  But, I had learned over the years that if I cried in front of grandma or my sister when the going got tough that they would also break down in tears.   So years ago, I taught myself to not cry in front of them because I felt like the glue that kept us together. 

Don’t get me wrong, I cried and cried the day my mom died.  Grandma and I were the only ones at grandma house when mom died and I was the one that had discovered that she quit breathing.  It was me that tried to find a pulse.  It was me that called the hospice nurse, our pastor, my husband, my brother, and others.  I cried when pastor recited the 23rd Psalms over mom’s body.  I was also the one that told my step-dad and my sister when they walked into the house to see mom, only find out that they were too late.  It was like déjà vu since we had just buried my maternal grandpa the month before.  So we once again went through the motions at the funeral home and cemetery. 

That first month just feels like a horrible dream and the world seems to just zoom by while you are stuck in place and can’t move.  But of course you have to move, you have to go on with life.  You can’t hole yourself up for ever.  The hardest part of that first year with my mom’s death was holidays, mom’s birthday a few months later, and my kids birthdays were the worst.  Many things helped me through. . . . my hubby, my kids, a few good friends, my faith, and reading. 

Faith-wise I believe: 1) That God does not give us more than we can handle and what he does give us makes us stronger, 2) That God has a reason for everything even if we cannot see it and even the bad can become something good in the end, and 3) That God is walking with us every step of the way even if we lose faith in Him.  The verse that helped me the most was “Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decision and his way!” ~ Romans 11:33 (NLT)

Book-wise:  The fictional book that helped me the most is called The Good Nearby by NancyMoser.  I found this book at the local library and hope that someday I can add it to my home library.  It illustrates how God can use things we would think are bad and undesirable to bring out the good in way we may never expect.  It also illustrates how over lives are so interconnected even with those that we deem as strangers.  I recommend this book to anyone going through a rough patch in life or anyone that needs a faith pick-me-up. 

Anyway, a few months after my mom’s death I had manage to maintain a new normal in my life.  I was trying to loose some of the pounds I gained during the eight months my mom was sick.  I am a stress-eater and so I had gained a bit of weight.    

A few weeks after my mom died a friend emailed me that her five year old daughter had leukemia.  She was diagnosis the day that we learned that my mom had about two weeks to live.  I had known this little girl since she was two and it broke my heart again.  This precious little one that is dear to my heart was sick, but that is the thing with cancer it does not care about age, race, or whether you are good or bad person.  Thankfully that wonderful inspiring little girl is in remission and is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with regards to treatments.  Yay to her and her strong enduring family!

So three months after my mom died, between Christmas and New Year’s, we were learned that my dad’s multiple myeloma had returned.  Well within a week, I had gained back all that I had lost, after all I had lost my mom three months before and was now faced with losing my dad too.  Anyway, multiple myeloma is a type of bone cancer.  It can cause brittle bones.  There is no permanent cure for it, only maintenance treatments that can temporarily put it into remission or can slow the progress of the cancer.  This past April dad had his second bone marrow transplant and his doctor said that it is in remission for now.  As of right now it is rare to have third bone marrow transplants for his type of cancer.   The thing with multiple myeloma is that it weakens the body and makes it more susceptible to other cancers, so if the multiple myeloma does not get him another cancer will.  The last bone marrow transplant bought him five years, so we will see how long the current one holds.  Oh, and I have yet to lose the weight and have even gained more pounds through dad’s and my paternal grandma’s many hospitalizations earlier this year.

Anyway, I felt like I lost a year, my thirty-third year.  I could not remember how old I was or sometimes how old my kids were.  I would sometime walk into a room and forget why I was there or what I was doing.  I am finally two years later remembering how old I am and I am doing better remembering things.  So I guess to wrap it up my thirty-third year was not the best year of my life.  But life is what you make of it, so we will keep our chins up and trudge on the best we can with what we have.