Through The Valley, With Children

One of my husband's beloved aunts is dying. We found out only three weeks ago that cancer had invaded her brain, her bones, her lungs, even her eye - it was everywhere, and it was spreading rapidly. At best, with aggressive chemo, she had about a year.

One week into the chemo treatments, her body began to shut down in protest. It was too much, too late. Now, she possibly has a week.

We had prepared ourselves for a year. A year sounded like enough time to get those last family celebrations in with Aunt Sharon around - Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, when she makes her prosciutto-wrapped asparagus we all fight over, and she holds court at the dining table, keeping everyone entertained and laughing. She's the baby sister of a large family and, as such, the natural "tease" who has never lost the ability to goad her brothers and sisters into at least a mock food fight or a "pinch war" - apt substitutes for the ponytail-pulling and frog-in-the-bed tricks that surely went on frequently while they were all growing up in rural Missouri.

A year wouldn't have been enough, of course, but it at least allowed us to delay the pain, to pray for a miracle and to spend time making memories we hoped we'd be able to live on, or would at least comfort us, after she was gone. But a week? What do you do - what can you do - in a week? And what do you say to little princesses who see Mommy and Daddy crying and speaking in hushed tones, then Daddy rushing off late one night and not seeing him again until the next day, carrying a sadness that, despite his best efforts to hide, he wears like a thick blanket that overshadows his normally upbeat spirit?

We do what we do when we don't know what else to do - we hit our knees and pray, grateful that God is there, bewildered that His plan includes this, angry that this senseless disease runs rampant and indiscriminate, frustrated in knowing that a week is all that is left, and searching, always searching, for what to do and how to explain it to children.

And then we get up, because He tells us over and over that He is with us, He is our refuge and strength, He is a very present help in trouble - and He, despite the world's best efforts to tell us otherwise - can most definitely be felt in our very getting up when all we want to do is crawl under the covers and let someone else take care of it. He takes care of it for us, with us and through us, whether it's in finding just the right resource to help walk us through talking to the Princesses, opening our eyes to wonderful friends new and old who will drop everything and rearrange their lives to help with no hesitation or resentment, or in locating a favorite kind of dessert to entice the palate of a kind, loving woman walking through the valley of the shadow of death with dignity and grace.

Aunt Sharon, I pray that your final request is fulfilled - that God's "job" for you in the next life will be to rock the babies in Heaven. I know I've learned an awful lot about rocking my Princesses - and the fruits of surrounding children with love, gentle discipline and respect - from the way you've lived your life. Be still now, and know that He is here, with you and with us, and that your family you love so much will be okay. Sadder, quieter, and with a very empty chair at the holidays, but we'll be okay. And, we'll look forward to seeing you again someday, as you always were here in your happiest moments, surrounded by children.