A Thankful List, A Monday

You’d think it would be really hard to come up with a thankful list just for today since it was mostly filled with doctor’s visits and details about the chemotherapy I’ll have after I’ve healed from the surgery that will happen way too soon for me to quite wrap my mind around at this point. But I have one.

1. My sister Felicity called me brave and said she’s proud of me. That feels awesome.

2. I read a ton of short stories today by LM Montgomery that I’ve never read before. Have you ever caught an episode in syndication of a show that you really love, and it’s an episode you’ve never seen? You know how good that feels? Multiply that by Anne of Green Gables and Me and you can imagine my happiness over this little treasure I discovered at the library called At the Altar, stories of love and marriage by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

3. A friend got me Volume I of The Selected Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery. I’m saving it for the hospital after surgery. Suddenly days in a hospital bed don’t seem nearly, nearly so bad.

4. Jake. Jake. Jake. My medical oncologist said that he has to sort of regret not having done chemotherapy with me the first time (even though he stands by his reasoning at the time as the studies weren’t proven for its effectiveness against recurrence for a tumor as small as mine was), because if he had maybe I wouldn’t be here now. My response was, NEITHER WOULD JAKE BE HERE. And I happily take this reality over that one.

5. After hearing the hardest news since ‘it’s cancer again’, we went to a restaurant and Michael had to leave the table for a moment. As he walked away I waited for the terror to seize me because suddenly I was alone with our new reality. But it didn’t come. Instead I thought about the pleasant restaurant noises and the pleasant restaurant music and the fact that Christmas is coming and the fact that I was smiling, all alone. I read in an LM Montgomery book that the sign of a happy woman is one who smiles when she’s alone. I’ve never forgotten that and I never take it for granted when it’s me.

6. I still wanted to read to my kids tonight, and it still soothed every part of me.

7. All of you. Because I know you won’t take this blog post to mean that I’m not scared and I know you won’t stop the good thoughts and kind prayers you’ve been sending.