Birthday looming 🎂

My birthday is looming...it's a really hard time for me mentally and emotionally. It's now a few days away and the anxiety and sadness are already building. I'm not sure why my birthday is so hard. I think maybe because it's really hard to be happy and celebrate life when a piece of my heart is missing. I'm getting older and living my life and someone I dearly love is forever 13 in Heaven. It's hard to accept that fact and try to come to terms with something so wrong and unfair. Last year my birthday was one of my most difficult days since Mary passed. Looking back on it I feel like I had a mini meltdown. I felt alone, lost and confused. This year I am trying really hard to stay positive and not get sucked into that deep dark hole which was really hard to climb out of the last time. I am working hard to try and look forward to a future with more personal growth and more happiness. I know I most likely have many years of birthdays to celebrate without Mary until we can be together again and I have every confidence that we will be together again. I have so much goodness and happiness in my life and I will hold on to that and look forward, not backwards. If anyone reads this blog entry my message to them is this: Live your life big and treasure every good moment. I see kids dying everyday, young spouses die unexpectedly and older people with full lives die daily. Maybe you need to repair bridges or just hug your loved ones a little more. Take today to do that. You never know when this life will end and once the person you love is gone it is too late to change things. If you find what makes you happy grab onto it and never let it go. Live a life full of love and purpose and be thankful for the good things in your life. Since losing Mary I have had moments of wanting to shut down, give up and/or just run away. I fought through those difficult feelings to find reasons to live again and there are many. Mary wants me to be happy and 
she wants me to live. She wants me to really live with a purpose and desire to make the most of my blessings. I TRY to do that everyday. Sometimes I fail but these days I am more successful than not. Thank you God for this life, for ALL the lessons and every experience. I don't say it enough...but "thank you." Here is to being 44. I am going to attempt to live everyday to the fullest. 

I read this article today and it said it perfectly. I ask you to read it (attached at the end) and take it all in. I will hopefully have many more birthdays ahead of me and I feel I have leaned what really living truly means. But here is a reminder from a 24 year old who has a short time left. Mary taught me what living was all about. She lived everyday to the fullest. She had a lot of life to live but didn't get the chance to live it like she deserved. So I choose to have passion and do it for her. I won't give up. I will be brave and hopefully leave the earth a little bit better than I found it. 
"Powerful Advice From A Dying 24 Year Old"

http://buff.ly/2sL5FhC

Dark Night of the Soul

In my recent search for meaning I came upon the term "Dark Night of the Soul." It is a time of deep internal darkness not everyone will experience. In my reading the term is used to describe what one could call "a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.  Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything.  Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level.  The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies.  Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses." I found all of this so profound and interesting and did more research. This dark time usually comes after a tragic life event that occurs out of chronological normal life order and many times it might involve the loss of a child or young spouse, as mentioned above. A person after an experience like this goes through a type of depression. They are confused and maybe want to die but would never commit suicide. I also found it very interesting that Mother Theresa herself went through many years of this darkness and did much questioning and searching. After reading her memoirs some might think she was actually an atheist because of her seemingly lack of faith at times but this was not the case. She never quit and never stopped searching for the light. I gather that there are two types of people who go through this dark time. There are those people who do actually give up on life and self destruct. And there are those that even though they feel 
hopeless and lost they desperately want to find meaning, purpose and happiness again. I feel I am the latter. I am forever changed by my experience of losing my precious first born so tragically  but I try to find some meaning in my confusion. It's hard to imagine that going through this dark time can be a huge blessing and awakening for some. It's also hard for me to imagine Mary's death could be a blessing in any way but maybe there are lessons I can learn in my journey back into the light. I definitely went through this "Dark Night of the Soul" and at times I am still there, but I also now see the light again. The light does look different now. It is more real and bright, more colorful and I notice all the sparkles and appreciate the warmth. I can sometimes find meaning where there was once none. If I hadn't gone through this dark time I would be sitting at home in my safe little house selfishly oblivious to the evils of the world. Once you have seen the dark there is no going back. I fight everyday to bring light and to find a new purpose. A different purpose than I had before but a purpose that is very important-to find a cure for childhood cancer. The awakening process is described as "an awakening into something deeper, which is no longer based on concepts in your mind.  A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer.  It’s a kind of re-birth.  The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die.  What dies is the egoic sense of self.  Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity.  Now it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realized that they had to go through that, in order to bring about a spiritual awakening.  Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self." I believe this time can be a huge growth process for a Christian. I often asked God why me and why didn't he save Mary? She being the most innocent and faithful child I had ever known. I was so hurt, sad, and angry. I didn't want to give up and turn my back on God but I felt so alone and rebellious. The Bible tells the story of a man named Job, who was well acquainted with God's silence. In his pain, he cried out to God, yet these cries were answered with a deafening silence for 37 chapters. But the story does not end there. He chose to hope in the Lord, despite the 
circumstances, and the Lord was faithful. Throughout the Bible there are examples of faithful men and women of God who go through periods where God seemingly abandons them.The book of Psalms is littered with laments. David, God's chosen King of Israel, often felt abandoned by Him and mused extensively onthe dark nights of his soul. "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide my face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?" (Psalm 13:1-2) My new reality wasn't something I was prepared for, it isn't something I would wish on my worst enemy. But to continue in this life I have to keep searching for answers and hope. I have a reality of life before Mary's cancer and a new reality now, after. I have to believe there is more to life than hopelessness  and that I can use the dark to become a better, more aware person. My faith is returning, it just looks different now. It's not so black and white and God doesn't fit into a neat little package. The scriptures don't just speak to what I want to hear, but they do speak truth. Thank you to those who have been on this journey with us and who continue to do so. I ask you to keep praying for our family as we navigate our way down this winding road. And on a note of much happiness, we were able to donate over $350,000 from 2 years of fundraising from our United for a CURE fund to Target AML research. This is research specific to AML and we believe the closest to a cure that there is available. Thank you from the bottom of our heart for your continued support. Now we need to keep raising more money and keep making a difference. 

     Thank you!!!!

"Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes with the morning." (Psalm 30:5)

www.curechildhoodcancer.org/united