LIONHEARTED LANDLOPER

       The doctor casually walked into the room, sat in a chair, and looked at my mom.        “So, your scan looked pretty good.” He said without much thought.        “What?”        “Your scan. The MRI. It looked pretty good. I was actually pleased with how it turned out.”        “What do you mean?”         “You know how there were all those spots and stuff in your brain? Like, they’re almost gone now. Barely even visible.” He explained. The lack of emotion in his demeanor was so incredibly unsettling that none of us thought we were hearing him right.        What does this mean? None of us know.  But something has helped my mom improve substantially and (at this point) the cancer has pretty much stopped progressing entirely. The doctor said it’s not a permanent fix — cancer will be back eventually. He said he didn’t know if that w...

For context, read my previous posts: Hospitals -&- Thanksgiving ,  Hospitals -&- Christmas . ***         The day started out normal. A good day, actually. A fun day; a school day. I showed up to school at 9:00 AM, per usual. It was one of the first days with sunshine and blue skies in a while. I found Jaren wandering the hallways of the church in his big camo slippers. I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk and we ended up pretending to be spies and dramatically running, rolling, and hiding around corners. We found Tracie and asked her to be a spy with us. After maybe 10 minutes of sprinting past doorways and "spying" on innocent bystanders, we discovered that the baptismal pool was open, warm, and unoccupied.        "We should all three put on our swimsuits and sneak into the baptismal pool when no one is looking" Jaren suggested.        And although we all knew he was originally joking, it somehow se...

    "Next year I will be better." She said simply, as if somehow she had disappointed me by being sick on Christmas.     But I don't need you to be better. I don't require that from you, mom. The holidays aren't for you to entertain or please me. I would rather be with you right now than anywhere else. This is time for us to be together.     After doing a biopsy on my mom's brain, the doctors were able to diagnose her with Central Nervous System Lymphoma. I never saw any of this coming. But I guess.. How could I?     Mom has gotten progressively better since they started treatment. She wears normal clothes and eats normal food. She can wheel herself around in a wheelchair and she keeps getting stronger. Sure, it's hard to see her like this -- but it's nice to see her improving.     I did not know I would be spending Christmas in a hospital this year. And no one knew the Messiah would be born in a mang...

    Hospitals are peculiar places. Each day in a hospital feels incredibly long -- yet somewhat like it only lasted around four hours. It feels like you entered some other dimension where the outside world just pauses until you leave.  The only way to occupy oneself and escape from the tormenting thoughts demanded by your surroundings is to stare blankly at a small table in a waiting room nearby and lethargically put together a puzzle that is most likely missing pieces.  I met a woman in that waiting room. Her name was Lily. Lily was beautiful and alone. She spoke broken English and had a broken heart. She told me about her husband who either had cancer, a stroke, or both (it was hard to understand some of what she said). Either way, she was obviously afraid. I asked her if I could pray with her, and she let me.  ~let's rewind~ Everything started when I was at a conference playing the cello in the band. I got a call that my mom was taken to the...