Well, here it is again. The best day! Well, the best day four years ago when Hayley saved Ashlyn. Followed by some of the worst days four years ago when VOD tried to interfere with Hayley's brilliant lifesaving plans and well, that doesn't matter anymore as Hayley's marrow was victorious after Ashlyn gave the fight of her life.
I look at these two women now, because that is what they have become in four years, and I marvel at the miracle of it all. How in the world did a glob of swirled up blood and stuff save a life? How in God's name (exactly) did we manage to produce a match for Ashlyn when all we meant to produce was a friend. How do these two carry on with their lives without being thunderstruck by the enormity of it all? Well, I know that answer, humorless humor and continual reminders about how one had cancer and one saved a life blah blah blah blah BLAH!
The reminders start with the beginning of award season. Ashlyn and I, hospital room bound, would go through countless images of movie stars in fancy dresses on the Internet. We would discuss. Then came the inauguration and the oohs and aahs over Michelle Obama's dress. Looking at her lovely dress this year reminded me of four years ago and where we were as a family, where I was as a mother, where my daughter was. And if you ask me that politically challenged question "Am I better off than I was four years ago?" Well, yes, we all are.
Because four years ago our 'hope' was not a slogan on a bumper sticker. It was what got us through every moment. Let me also add faith to that because there was a whole lot of that as well. And trust. Trust that all these incredible medical tricks would work. Trust that at the end of the road, two girls would be standing there, misbehaving.
I tend to ramble when I get on the subject of cancer and transplants and miracles and daughters. I tend to freak people out a bit when I talk about the incredible healing power of giving something so heavy to The Lord. I tend to make people stop for a second and rethink their petty complaint for a moment, just a moment, and then we all go back to our silly petty ways.
Hayley's three tiny scars have faded a lot in the past four years. So much so that this year she got three tiny hearts tattoo'd around the scars with the date above them. Ashlyn's scars have faded some, but her port scar was much bigger and was used and used and used and used- it will probably never completely fade.
I forget to be grateful and prayerful and humble. I forget the way all of this made me feel. I forget to pay it forward. I forget how lucky we are. You probably forget how lucky you are as well. It is easy to do in the day to day crap of it all.
But then again, it shouldn't take a near death or life saving experience to remind me to be grateful and prayerful and humble. Because before all the cancer hullabaloo and after, one thing remained constant. I am blessed beyond measure. I celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and bone marrow transplant days!
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