Today Started Out Fine...

...but in the last few hours it's become rather emotional. I've cried
four times in the last three hours. Well, one of those times was out
of sheer frustration having told the boys to go to bed no less than
5,362 times since 11:30pm. But the other three times have just been
weirdly triggered by Facebook and blogs of all things. Granted,
the Facebook cry session was due to a message I received from a
very dear friend of mine whose brother is dying of cancer.

While he and I were never close friends, I always had one of those
"Oh, God, I would just die if he were to ever walk up and say, 'You
are the woman for me,' but it'll never happen because he'd dating a
friend of yours" kind of crushes on him. So I never said anything.
Anyway, my friend told me that he had to tell his daughter that his
cancer didn't respond to the chemotherapy. I flashed back to my
senior year in high school when my mom had to tell us 2 weeks after
losing her leg to cancer, that she was terminal and had probably less
than 6 months to live. It felt like I'd had the wind knocked out of me.
I mean, I dealt with it. I had to. I was the oldest of four and had to
pick up Mom's slack while she was sick. But it sucked. I remembered
all those feelings of anger, sadness, rage, indifference, self-pity,
compassion and fear came bubbling back up after all these years. I
definitely can relate to how his daughter is feeling now. (Mom made it
by the way. She made the protocol for an experimental drug and
she's one of the NIH success stories for Interleuken II. As I understand
it, not that many made it.) 

I regained my composure from this bout of crying just after I added
my friend, her brother, his daughter, and their entire family to my
prayer list. I yelled at my kids and got back into the groove that is
motherhood, and then sat down to read one of my favorite blogs
and in spite of how hilarious Brittany is, she struck a nerve in me and
the next thing I knew, I was bawling my eyes out again with my head
on the desk. God, I'm such a sap. Pass the tissue. Ismail came in and
asked me if I was crying. I said yes. He asked why and hugged me. I
just gave him the usual mom-spiel about how I'm sad right now and
just need a quick cry. That seemed okay with him and got me a kiss
goodnight.

So then I thought maybe my other favorite blog might cheer me up.
WRONG! This usually funny, self-deprecating site was written in the
middle of some seriously stressed-out Mom-mode angst. I don't know
what's going on with Shauna's family right now but she made number
3 on my prayer list for personal intentions. And then the tears began
to flow again. Wow.

I need to drink a 2-liter bottle of water to refill my tear ducts, I think.
But maybe tomorrow will be better, God willing.