The trudge of January and February

"The Rich person has a lot of things, but he is smothered by them" Mother Teresa

I have been amazed at how quickly I can go from "frightened panic about dying" to "totally bored out of my mind with daily responsibilities."

In this calm (thank you, God) period of waiting - when there is nothing to do but take my medications and have weekly blood drawn (all signs look good) - my laundry and dishes pile up, routine medical appointments, school assignments and sporting events fill the calendar - snow days and late starts send my children into fits of excitement and then valleys of despair - I find myself lonely and bored many days.

I call it "the trudge." Real life is filled with trudge. Just a month ago, I was heart-achingly grateful to live daily life. It was a joy to do real things with the people I love. Oh, how fickle I am. It is not that I am ungrateful for these days...it's just that dishes are gross. They're boring. Laundry does not feel heroic compared to fighting for my life. Even though the threat of cancer re-growing is not gone, someone still needs to sign up kids for sports and cancel what is not working and order t-shirts for academic decathlon. The trudge is real. The trudge is as hard as fighting cancer somedays because no one is going to pat you on the back for just doing what moms and dads have done for hundreds of thousands of years.

But I will.

I want to encourage you through your trudge. Your trudge is where you show your strength - your grit. Your trudge is where you show that love really does conquer everything. Because your trudge is your service to the people you love. It's the boring moments where you fold one more shirt because he loves it. It's the trip to the grocery store for her favorite breakfast food or milk for the baby. It's two round trips to school because they forgot their folder and won't have anything for the day without it. It's listening to your lonely college student longing for friendship and struggling with his future. It's sitting with your adult child as they worry that they'll never find a partner in life. It's longing for grandchildren that do not come.

Right now, we have loving friends & family members who are dealing with their own very real health concerns. Their trudge is long days holding a baby at the hospital, another possibly losing vital functions of their eyes, an older family member beginning the frightening days of hospice. There are quiet, radical changes in lives that stop people dead in their tracks but no one notices because it looks like more trudge.

But everyone has the trudge and it seems to peak in January and February. You don't have to be dying to die to yourself. Every morning when I pray, I pray for the grace to face the trudge...because I hate it...but I love the ones I have been given to love, so I pray to remember that I chose them and I love them. And soon, it will be warm and I'll have shorts on again. (And hopefully the bag of poop will be a not-so-fond memory!)