WHO ARE YOU TEACHING TO DANCE?

The Sun Comes After the Rain
photo by Kat 2007

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.

It's about learning to dance in the rain.

“How do you keep going?” Toby asked me when I took care of Husband after hot pulp from a paper mill digester had spewed over his body. At the time, I didn’t think about it. I did the necessary—took care of two elementary aged girls, four-year-old son and of course, a man in horrendous pain.

“How do you keep going?” Laurie asked me twenty-three years later when Husband suffered a nervous breakdown. I answered her with a lot of screaming and yelling. Laurie had become my ear, my listener and walking buddy. Several times a week she picked me up, we drove to the river and walked the boardwalk. I bawled, complained, yelled, cried and finally wound down before Laurie drove me home. By the time I arrived home, I once again committed myself to love and take care of the man I didn’t understand.

“How do you keep going?” Debbie asked me ten years later when doctors diagnosed Husband with a rare cancer, pseudomyxoma peritonei, which originated in his appendix. I shrugged, knowing I wasn’t coping well, but hiding my fear and anxiety from family, friends and Husband.

The obvious answer to each question was, “I pray for wisdom and peace every day. I ask the Lord to give me the strength to get through the necessary and have enough energy left over to have fun.” But now I understand more than the obvious.

When Mom took care of me through six months of breast cancer treatment, I realized why I could keep going—because Mom did. From my childhood I'd watched her take care of others. She modeled the role of caregiver before me.

All of us are teaching others to laugh, live and love whether we know it or not.

Still Lionhearted, Kat