A Blur

The past few months have been a blur. On Jan. 18, my mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. On April 15 at 9:47 EST, she went to be with Jesus from her home in South Carolina. She was surrounded by some family members, friends and three hospice nurses. My dad led the charge of singing my mom into glory.

Since January, I have spent parts of 26 days away from home. I say parts because some of those days were travel days where I left my home at 7 a.m. or returned home in the evening. I logged over 7,500 miles on my van and now have a permanent love/hate relationship with 285 around Atlanta. (I know. I'm just joining millions of others.)

I have read more about breast cancer than I ever really wanted to know, performed nursing/care giver tasks that I never imagined I'd be called on to do, and consumed so many Foosh Mints that I may be caffeinated for the rest of the year.

To say that the past 90+ days or so that I've been preoccupied would be a gross understatement. Yet, in my preoccupation God has showed up in miraculous and wonderful ways--and He did it like always using His people--a perfectly timed email or phone call, a hug, a cake, tears shed together.

I'm still processing my experience and have no illusions about this being a quick return to normalcy. In fact, returning to normalcy seems kind of lame right now.

More later.