Ten Years

Ten years.

"Ten" is usually a number to celebrate.  Your ten year wedding anniversary is a special milestone.  The day your child finally gets to hold up "two whole hands" when asked how old she is is an exciting day!  A perfect "ten" in gymnastics leads to a gold medal.  Knocking down all ten pins in bowling ... Strike!

But what about ten years since your 16-year-old daughter woke up in the morning with the first signs of the cancer that would ultimately take her life?  There is no celebration for that.

Valentine's Day 2008 will forever mark the beginning of a journey that would change our lives in ways we never could have imagined.  Who would have thought that a morning headache and some nausea would launch us into a world we barely even knew existed ... a dizzying world of radiation and chemotherapy, blood draws and platelet infusions, hospital stays and hospice admission?  A place where our faith and our family would be tested beyond what we ever would have thought we could survive.

But ten years ago today we didn't know that.  We thought Hannah had a virus ... just a stomach bug that would resolve itself in a day or two.


Over the next several months, I plan to re-live our experiences in the last year of Hannah's life on earth through a series of blog posts.  Many of you who read this blog followed our journey through the emails I wrote over that year.  My desire is to process through the events of that year from the perspective that a decade of time has brought ... for myself, really.  But if you'd like to follow along, you're welcome to join me.