Normal

When I was a kid I went to church Sunday at about 8:30 in the morning, we had Sunday school followed by church. We went to lunch with other families from the church, went home and changed and were back at church for youth fellowship at about 3pm and came home around 9pm. We went to church Wednesday night as well and sometimes on Thursdays for prayer meeting. I thought it was normal. A friend of mine grew up in Brooklyn and shared his apartment with 6 other people. He slept on the sofa in the living room. He thought it was normal. I also knew a guy who went to summer camp all summer long, literally all summer long from the time he was 10 until he was 17. He thought that was normal. In short, we think things are normal which other people think are strange. I don't know any other kid who went to church three or four times each week, slept on the couch as their bed or was shipped off for eight weeks each year yet each of us thought it normal. We can accept as normal many odd things.

We are in the second cycle of chemotherapy. A writer asked me why I use we when my wife is the one taking chemo. I told him/her that my wife has the tumor but our whole family has cancer. It is true. Anyway, that is a digression.We now think it is normal to go through cycles of nausea and wellness, loss of energy and times when we can walk two blocks, fear over death and euphoria that she is getting better. It is normal.

Another normal thing is knowledge that she will never be cured, only better and worse and better. That is hard for her to process and accept as it is for all of us. People try to help by acting in abnormal ways. An example is that the people at work make decisions for her and do not include or even tell her. They think they are helping. Oddly, by engaging in decision making ad the setting of directions she feels better. Why because that is a normal part of her day and life. To not do that is abnormal.

So we have settled in to a normal routine. Mom can't do the things that she used to do, dad does them badly. Mom is ill all the time so we have to plan ahead. Tensions are high and periodically we all just sort of break apart.

I pray for the abnormality of more normal times.