It has been quite the start to a new year already, this 2017.
2016 ended with ten weeks of outpatient intravenous chemotherapy before my family and I headed to Pittsburgh for the holidays. Unfortunately a bone marrow biopsy revealed that the drugs I was being administered did not make enough improvement against the leukemia, so we decided to start a different protocol. This newest FDA approved therapy requires a 3-day stay in the hospital so that my vitals could be monitored as well as other metrics to ensure the drug has no unintended consequences. It wasn’t much fun being hooked up via a PICC line to an IV for 72 hours, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
I was allowed to come home for the weekend and sleep in my own bed, and boy, that has never felt so good. The reward in sight after another round of this is getting to do it again next weekend too. Hooray! (As long as the meds work!)
Here in North Carolina, we got 4 inches of snow from winter storm Helena, which meant the kiddos were home from school and excited about sledding with their big dad. But initially, they decided to demonstrate how the playroom and basement play area would look if a tornado came through; they turned the joint upside down with every toy out of its box and scattered all around the floor. There was no place to walk. It was nice having them home from school (sort of), but they were rambunctious to say the least. So when the snow stopped, we were all ready for them to get outside and make some memories.
However, for me, I had no juice, no energy. The easiest and preferred thing for me do was to sit in my chair or lie on the couch and just exist, to simply watch the whirlwind of kid activity around me. When the kids got suited up for sledding, I was shaking my head back and forth because there didn’t seem to be any way I could muster the energy to take them sledding at the golf course.
My wife was so patient with our tribe and got them geared up and as warm as can be with their new snowsuits and boots, mittens and hats. They were beyond excited. Then there was me: I could hardly move. She came over to me, slumped down in my chair, and said, “You need to take them because YOU GET TO! There may come a time when you can’t and you will wish for every one of these moments back again.”
I wish I could say I jumped off the chair with newfound energy and went outside for two hours with my kiddos, but that is not how it went down. I was struck by her words “I GET TOO,” and the reality that she was encouraging me to see. I nodded my head in agreement, slipped on my winter pants, coat, hat and gloves and piled into the SUV, golf course bound. Coach Wilson, from my book THE QB MENTOR, always reminds my son, Shawn, that when things get difficult as he pursues his dream to play college football, the key is to focus on what we want, not how we feel!
I used the truth that both my wife and Coach Wilson helped me see to make a memory with Leo, Ella and Jordan. Sledding in 2017! It wasn’t as rough on me as it could have been, although I couldn’t pull them up the hills as much as they wanted and I stayed on top of the hill for most of the runs. But I was there. Mission accomplished. I got too, not cause I had to, but because I wanted to.
I thanked the Lord and His son for the strength to be with my youngest kids, especially against the backdrop of having been hospitalized for few days. I told Kate that she is welcome to remind me anytime that I GET TO, especially with family. I will keep doing all I can, until the day I cant. But today isn’t that day. Today, I get to.
I hope that you can find some time these next few days to intentionally slow down, to look at your heart and life and your year ahead, and to realize that there are so many things we have to do that have the opportunity to be so much more enjoyable if we see them as privileges. I hope we can see the things we GET TO do, and how that perspective brings extra weightiness and meaning to those moments. Happy New Year 2017.
Amen and AMEN.