In my old life, a busy day consisted of working at a part-time office job, coming home and cleaning the house, then making dinner and running kids to various activities and making sure homework got done. Some evenings I would work a second job, I’d come home and my pager would go off, and I’d head out the door to the fire station. Life was busy, but I knew my place in this world, it was comfortable and I loved it.
Then cancer happened.
My busy life with lots going on became laser focused on taking care of my very sick child. I spent days in the hospital by his bedside tending to his needs, but mostly just sitting with him so he wouldn’t be lonely. I put my energy into reading everything I could find about his disease and the treatments. When I wasn’t by his bedside, I was at home doing my best to care for my other children so they wouldn’t be lonely. Or, I was at work just trying to feel normal. Life was chaotic, but I was content knowing that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing – caring for my family.
And then Zach died, Alli got married, Sam graduated from college and Grace started high school.
Now, I meet with researchers and read through osteosarcoma research updates, I fly across the country to share our story with children, moms and dads, professionals, healthcare providers and priests. I read through contracts for music deals, movie deals and speaking engagements. And I spend time with families who are fighting the beast or who have lost children to it. I meet them in the darkest and scariest times of their lives, knowing I can’t make it better, but can serve as an empathetic witness to their suffering. I have a busy life with lots of moving parts that are at times difficult to keep track of, and sometimes I wonder if I am enough.
Am I smart enough?
Am I brave enough?
Am I energetic enough?
Am I outgoing enough?
Am I spiritual enough?
Am I strong enough?
Am I enough?
And then I remembered the truth; I’m not enough. But it doesn’t matter because that’s not the point.
None of the heartbreaking and beautiful stuff that has happened to our family these past several years is about me making things happen. It’s always been simply about doing little things with great love wherever life leads me. It’s about stretching myself to do things that terrify me in the hope that it will make the world even a tiny bit better. It’s about tackling things in which I am no expert, at the risk of looking utterly ridiculous, in order to further a mission I believe in. And it’s about offering what I have, and who I am, despite my imperfections and weakness to serve those whom God brings into my life.
My life is not comfortable anymore, and sometimes I don’t know my place in it, but I have, nonetheless, come to love it that way.