Grief and Hope

Someone emailed me over the summer with the words Grief and hope are not mutually exclusive, Jaime...and I've tried to keep that in mind. She said it doesn't make sense if you approach it "logically"; it's something that you have to approach from the heart. Which can be hard for me, since I like things to have reasons and explanations and clear boundries and paths. What does the coexistence of grief and hope look like? I've been trying to figure that out. Does it look like the woman who knows there is a good chance this might be her last Thanksgiving, but still pushes ahead for treatments? Does it look like the girl who is holding out hope for a miracle, but with her oncology knowledge, knows that's not going to happen and it pains her to watch? Or does it look like the man who stands silently to the side, waiting for the right moment to lay it all out on the table for her knowledge? I think we all know what grief looks like; the crying oneself to sleep, or crying in the shower, the anger and fury that comes out as a response to a seemingly random diagnosis or outcome. We are all familiar with that dazed feeling of how did I get here? was it only yesterday the world was normal? But that was yesterday, and after today, nothing is ever the same.

I am going up North tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and my bags are full of hope and grief. This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my family that I have right now, the fact that I have three grandparents, two parents, an aunt, 3 cousins, a brother and a nephew. I am thankful they are all alive here to celebrate with me this year. I am going to concentrate on living in the moment, because that's all we have right now - that's all anyone has, really. But Stage IV cancer has that nasty habit of bringing things to the surface, and this fact is no different.

I really, really hate Stage IV cancer.