Posted by Sammy

February 5, 2012

Look around you. What do you see? Do you see people? Ok but what do you SEE? Do you see them or just notice them and do you notice who and what they are? As I sit here two months since life as I know it ended and Stephanie’s battle came to a close I have come to a realization: I am not alone. Now before you say “duh” let me elaborate. I mean I am not the only one who has had life turned on its ear. So many of us have had things happen that would stop others in their tracks. I hear of friends fighting cancer even now, of childhood traumas, of loved ones lost and more. And yet what I have also realized is that while the pain is in the trauma there is beauty in the healing. The healing and rebuilding of a person’s spirit is a beautiful and joyful thing.  Because it means that grace and love are at work.

Now whether you share my faith or not I do think we can agree that love is powerful and so is joy. That is what spoke to me on Sunday with these words:

“Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” It is why I have said over and over again I choose joy. You see it is a commitment to do so and it can be a challenge. I used to feel guilty for taking my turn to leave the hospital and go back to the apartment for a shower while Steph’s mom took over. Imagine how I feel being alive and she isn’t. Or that looking back for 7 years she had cancer and I didn’t. And then I picture just how hard of a smack I’d get if she heard me say that. She knew what a toll it took on both of us. And she understood that guilt but she also knew how to live with joy in the face of increasingly scary odds. And she did just that. So now its my turn.

Every day the breaks heal just a little. And some days, the wounds sting just a bit more than others. Some days I shed an extra tear for what might have been. But as I’ve said so many times I get to celebrate what was. Was there suffering? Of course. Was there sadness and times where it all seemed like too much? What do you think? But there was love and there was grace and there was joy. So while the final day will be on my mind as I go through this day two months later I will also think to the days of joy. To one final trip to Disney were we got to go to the front of every line. Ill think of our last trip to Las Vegas and finally getting to eat at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. (food nerds we were!) There were the nights where we couldn’t sleep so we’d watch and laugh at the same movies over and over again and vandalize the white board in the hospital room. Even better was the Great Road Adventure of 2009 where we couldn’t find a hotel room driving through a pitch black stretch of highway in Alabama. So much more of our life brings me joy than sorrow. Some gets shared here. Some is just for me.

You see in a way I find myself feeling a little like Orpheus when he descends into the underworld to find Euridice. See he passes all the trials but one. He must trust that she is always there for if he ever looks back she will be lost to him forever. At the last minute, just as they are emerging, he looks back only to see her pulled away. How is that like me? Well unlike Orpheus I am allowed to look back, but I need to look back with joy. Sad days will happen but I cannot look back in sadness for very long otherwise it will be not Stephanie pulled away but my joy; OUR joy. See the attitude and joyfulness that I walk forward with is not mine it is OURS. She and I forged it together through 7 years that when you look back, should have broken us both; even pulled us apart. And yet we endured it all together and as I look back I feel like if nothing else I got one thing right in life in that. While I did feel broken two months ago, holding her hand and looking in her eyes for the last time, my breaks are slowly healing. It is in our brokenness that we find a healing love from all those around us and the joy to live. I am learning to live again.  As much as I wish the road was a sprint, it is a marathon. So two months in to yet another test of endurance I say thank you to all who have carried me up the hills. One of the happy things we always enjoyed was the Tour de France. Each day we would get up and start watching the race, have coffee and just enjoy the time together. We didn’t watch every stage but made it a point to always watch them race in the mountains. There is a mountain in the French Alps that is a legendary brutal climb. It has over 20 switchbacks where the road cuts back the opposite direction you are riding. It is so high that depending on weather the clouds cover the summit…sometimes with snow…in summer. One rider was so exhausted once at the top he said he saw the snow turn black. It is called Alpe d’Huez.

People ride bikes up this…that yellow line is the route. Im on my own personal Alpe d’Huez right now. It is a long brutal climb toward healing and even when I reach the top I won’t be the same as when I started. And yet like all trials the beauty is in the healing that is and will take place. That is what Stephanie wants us to see I believe. I known she’s with me always no matter the path my life takes and I know she won’t let me stay broken for very long. The cracks are mending. This year is still new and so many possibilities lie in front of us all. What will you do?

Live. Give. Love

Sammy