“Telling time by last year’s calendar, ” said someone and I somehow overheard them. This statement had an impact on me – and I decided that this was something that I would perhaps like to avoid doing too much of…

Last year on the day after Thanksgiving we had our miraculous family photo taken. Mark had been spared for just long enough – the photographer had asked us to wait until Saturday because it was absolutely freezing cold. We declined and as a result of the rain and the cold the photos are rather terrible…. but we have them. Early the next morning I woke up to Mark sitting up in bed struggling to breathe. It took an hour to get him to the car – our three sons carried him – and David drove him the many hours to Huntsman Cancer Institute where they put him on oxygen and made preparations to being emergency chemotherapy.

The Rest of the Story

I don’t particularly love to think about those days – and when I do I work to focus on the miracles… and there were so many!

Working my way back through the year… October 11 was the day of Mark’s surgery. They removed a six inch tumor from his upper leg/groin which had been causing untold agony for months. They also removed his adductor muscles. It was on this day that I was first told to prepare myself and my children for life without him. Do you recall? The doctor said it was good we were preparing a family get-together for Thanksgiving and not for Christmas… The following day I had to make those six terrible phone calls to the children. No – five phone calls because Jackie came to the surgical waiting room just as the surgeon walked away. We stood there hugging each other and crying – this wasn’t the last time I would hug and cry with a child!

Fast forward to October 11 of this year when I was in Europe and received the news that a beautiful baby girl had joined our family three weeks earlier than expected! Our day of sorrow was now a day of happiness.

August 10, 2023 was the day that I left Natalie in Blacksburg, VA to begin her graduate studies at Virginia Tech. Mark picked me up at the airport sometime around 3:00 a.m. and took me to our new home at the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge in Salt Lake City to begin his five weeks of radiation. His driving frightened me because he could no longer use his right leg effectively. I became the permanent driver.

A year later and I have photos of hiking with Jackie and Kimberly. This was actually a rather big deal to me because I pulled Mark’s hiking daypack from our closet and Kimberly wore it full of our water and snacks just as Mark had done for countless hikes before. I used it on three hikes this fall – at first I could scarcely look at it but by the third time if was a source of comfort.

This year my niece was married on my anniversary (August 3). I was happy for her and beyond sad for myself. Mark was gone scarcely a month at that point. Looking back I cannot fathom how I got through it. It would have been 35 years for us. The year before we were also apart and I took this photo of a giant bouquet of flowers which Natalie and I took on our walk. I think they are from somewhere in Indiana.

Do you remember the photo from Mark’s obituary? I took that picture on June 29, 2023 – just one year and one day before he passed away. It was a fun afternoon together with Dominic, the co-founder of our company. We had lunch together at Sensuous Sandwiches… hard to believe that after all of these years of coming and going to Utah… this was our first time! Delicious!

Now I will post a photo from June 30, 2023. Natalie, Jackie, Mark and I are together for a fun date – we went to watch Newsies. Jackie had given me the tickets for my birthday in April and we had been anticipating the event for over two months. During those months Mark and I had enjoyed that marvelous vacation to Rome along with the Mediterranean cruise. A few weeks after getting back he thought that he felt a small lump in his leg and within a week we called our oncology team because it was already growing. By the time we were watching Newsies they had brought him in for initial scans which included his lungs. During intermission he stepped out to take a phone call from Huntsman and look at his results online. When he returned to his seat he showed me the results – there were small spots in his lungs. It could have been scar tissue, but we now know that they were the beginning of those terrible tumors which plagued us for so long.

I sat for the rest of the performance with my heart in my throat. I was stunned. I was more than stunned but I cannot think of a word that is either strong enough or deep enough to express my feelings. Fear. Horror. Denial. Acceptance. Wanting to freeze time right where we were.

Well guess what? Time does not freeze. Time marches on whether we like it or not. Exactly one year later Mark moved on to the next life and left us all behind.

I again find myself without words to express my thoughts on all of this. Comparing the two years like this I find sometimes 2023 had the “better” memories but sometimes they were found in 2024. I do not want to tell time by last year’s calendar. I want to cherish my memories and learn from my experiences. I want to live in the present and look to the future. You may have heard the saying that your rearview mirror is small but your windshield is very large… so look forward! Where will I be and what will happen on these dates in 2025? What about 2035?

I LOVE my memories but there are many more to be made.

It is the circle of life and it makes me dizzy….

Wait…. I’m not done yet… and how could I have forgotten to include this?? Last Thanksgiving we were all together. This Thanksgiving several family members were missing but we were so pleased to welcome David’s fiancé, MaKayla to our festivities! She will be a wonderful addition to the family.

Ok. That’s enough. I will wrap it up again.

It is still the circle of life. And it still makes me dizzy.