Benchmarks Along The Way

We're coming upon a year since Michael's diagnosis.  How do I, the person who hardly does dates, know this?  Because Michael's birthday is in a week and a half.  I still have the cellular memory of the sights, sounds, and smells of the hospital waiting room where I sat while Michael underwent a lymph node biopsy on his 50th birthday.  I remember the voices on the television screen that was bolted onto the wall declaring over and over again that the approaching snowstorm would be a doozy.  The woman across the room was talking to the strangers next to her about her fears of driving in the snow.  But I can't remember if the storm lived up to the predictions or not.

I can still access the heavy anticipation that hung around me like a cloud for seven days while waiting for biopsy results and then the sinking of my stomach at the sound of Michael's voice telling me the diagnosis. 

Now I sit at my computer.  It's sunny.  Warm for a January day.  Michael is readying himself for work.  This past year has not brought what I expected.  Not the "normal" life (whatever that is) that I expected before the words, Mantle Cell Lymphoma, were introduced.  But, also, none of the days of chemo, etc., that I thought would be the instant result of the diagnosis.  

I don't know anything about life.  It just happens in all of its profundity and beauty and scariness and love and sickness and other ways in which we have not yet invented words to describe.  I am at its mercy.  And it does seem to be full of mercy.  

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In Dharma news...  Right now, the little girl is getting spayed.  We weighed her when we got to the vet's:  38.8 pounds.  When she came into our home and hearts, just three months ago, she weighed a little over 18 pounds.  Our little puppy is becoming a dog!

The night we brought Dharma home.

Last night (almost three months after adoption and the night before the big spay).