Tonight is a slumber party. I hear jokes and laughter and thumps coming from the other room as these four young men settle down to sleep. My kids are on the right and left, and their two friends (brothers) are on the top and bottom. They have all been friends since they all popped out of the womb, and I have been friends with their dad since I first saw him in the OSU Athletic Training room back in 1978 wearing a shirt that said, "Throwing for Jesus" on the front and "Lifting for Jesus" on the back. That was 29 years ago, and now that same OSU athlete and father to these two children (and two more at other homes) has Stage IV Melanoma cancer that has grown into a walnut sized tumor in his brain.
My funniest story about their dad relates to "I" who is on the bottom center. His mother's water broke, and she asked me to come to the hospital for his birth and take pictures. As I was getting the camera ready, the nurse yelled, "Help Me!" I turned around and said, "I don't know anything about delivering a baby!" She said, "Not the baby, the dad!" I looked down and saw their dad fainted and flat on the floor. I was put in charge of dragging him out of the way so he was out of the path of the baby delivery! I was three months pregnant with the one on the right at the time, and their dad is a 6 foot 3 inch former javelin thrower. NO SMALL MAN to move!
I ended up going to the nursery to supervise the weighing and the measuring of "I," filling in for his dad because dad was too sick to move. It was a very comical situation.
With all the laughter coming from the other room as I type, I can't imagine what it would be like to fear the loss of their father to this hideous disease. Prayers and tears here.
2 comments:
Such joy-filled faces ~ and yet, as you said, to consider the underlying fear and sorrow. What a mingling of emotions is this life...
That is scary. I am glad they have your boys and your family to ad a sense of normalcy to a very sad situation.
I love the picture. It does so so much joy!
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