Cancer, A Shooting, A Jail Break...Oh My!

The title sounds like a joke, however, all have happened in my family over the past 2 months. My Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Thankfully the Dr's think they caught it in time and he'll begin to undergo radiation therapy this month. My Dad is 6"1" slim and very active, so I've always thought of him as being in good shape. Unfortunately, I forgot cancer doesn't discriminate. My Dad is 2 decades shy of 100. When he began to talk to me about his treatment, he simply said, "I've lived 80 years...I've seen enough." Yep...that's my Dad. A realist to the end.

Out of the 11 years that I've been married, my husband has had quite a few deaths in his immediate and distant family. So far, this year there have been 4. Out of all of the deaths that have occurred and the funerals he has attended, I have never seen him cry. When his 19 year old nephew was killed in a drive-by shooting a week and a half ago, he cried a cry I had never seen before. I could tell his heart was broken and saddened. It was a life cut short when his nephew still had an entire life to live.

Ok, so "jail break" may not exactly fit the story...but it sounded great as a title. Ha! To make a long story short, a niece walked away (literally) with her young child in tow, from an opportunity to start a new life and to make things "right". Little does she know that she's not only disrupted other peoples lives, but she's also made her own life more difficult than it should be. I thank God the baby is in a safe place, but the whereabouts of my niece are unknown at this time.

Although I have been physically down, life around me continues to go on....the good and the bad. I just take it all in stride, one day at a time and just thank God for allowing me to live through another day.