A battle cry.

The art of the battle cry has existed through the ages. 

It's the stuff of legend, of fact and fiction.

It's Hellenes, with the high pitched "alalalal" of the Iliad.

It's the US marines and their "oorah" as they prepare to launch.

It's "Freeeedommmmm" and it's "For NARNIA!!".

Its the stir and whine of the bagpipes as they call the young men out from the trenches in the muddy, bloody fields of France and Turkey.

A battle cry exists to-

Awaken the readiness of the fighter. It says, "time to stand up and fight now."

It exists to-

Rally the troops. It says, "we are in this. We have got this. Let's do this."

It exists to-

Alert the enemy. It says, "here's your notice enemy! Hear our roar and the sound of our cry. We are coming for you!!" 

I'm standing, knee deep in the trenches of battle.

We've come to the  front line. 

There is a shift that takes place in battle when you come near the front line. 

The normality of everyday life is shrugged off and everything is focused on the fight. 

The trenches are dug in a little deeper.

The weapons become bigger, lethal in their accuracy. 

Our front line means we are far away from our children.

The front line is not a place for little boys.

My heart is evenly and painfully divided directly down the middle as I stand firmly on the front line and glance often over my shoulder towards home, wanting to be the one who tucks squirmy 7 year olds into bed and kiss their squishy faces. Wanting to be the one who feels 9 year old arms wrap around me and squeeze with the intensity of a sons devotion. 

Someone told me once that being a mother meant you saw your own heart beating in the smile of your child's face.

My beating heart is far from me.

My heart is divided. 

Because I'm a mum. And I think I'm indispensable. 

And I'm a wife. And I need to stand right next to my husband- here, and hold his hand as we fight.

Sometimes it feels like it's going to crack under the pressure, but then... Just as I'm about to crumble...I hear it. 

It starts as a tiny whisp of noise, a remnant of something that could be a word...

It shifts focus, the louder it gets.

It reminds me that this battle is not forever, that peace will come back to our house once more.

It tells me to stand up and prepare to fight.

It rallies the warriors around me. The armies that have chosen to stand along side us, lifting up our arms in this fight. Oh... The words that I could write about my warriors. 

The faithful grandmothers and aunties who carry us in their midnight vigils. 

The resolute friends who laugh with us and cry with us in the face of the fight.

The selfless family members who have put aside their agenda to take up our agenda.

And finally.... This stirring of noise that takes on an unmistakable sound...

It tells our enemy that we are coming for it.

Fear... We are coming for you. Back off. 

Doubt.. Your day is done, with your dark thoughts of what ifs and maybes. 

Cancer... You are vile. We have your number. No more hiding and growing and sucking the life from my husband. 

The battle cry soon echoes and rolls and resonates until I can bear the weight of being on the front line. 

Do you know what my battle cry sounds like??

The battle cry is you.

You.

Praying.

Calling me.

Loving my kids.

Sharing our burden.

It's you.

It's you, speaking words of strength when I need to feel a bit stronger.

It's you, on your knees and storming heaven when I don't have any words left to pray.

Each time you utter those words,

 "God, heal Sheldon. 

God, bring about the miraculous. 

God, pour out your peace on them now. 

God, protect their boys and wrap them in your arms. 

God, guide the surgeons as they go in after this monster tumor." 

Each time you cry out with me in the middle of this battle.

That's my battle cry.

It tells me to stand.

It tells me I have an army.

It tells our enemy that it's on.

Next week is a big offensive in battle strategy.

Tuesday is hospital admittance and a vascular procedure to put in a filter to help protect his heart and lungs from the blood clots that are filling the veins in his leg.

Thursday is the big surgery.

Doctor Joseph is going to remove the very large, very life threatening tumor that is currently residing between Sheldon's stomach and kidney. 

He's got this. 

He's confident.

So...

While the front line battle rages, keep up the battle cry.

Love you.

Xo

My friend, Horatio G. Spafford

It's story time.

There once lived a man named Horatio G. Spafford.

Horatio was a lawyer.

Horatio had a lovely home, a lovely wife and a handful of lovely children.

Everything was lovely.

Until tragedy waltzed in one day and Horatio lost his 4 year old son to a terrible, senseless disease. 

Horatio and his wife and their remaining children were grief stricken. The loss of a child... Heartbreaking to say the least.

Well, a few years passed and Horatio invested a large amount of money into real estate. It was the mid 1800s in Chicago and real estate was booming. 

Unfortunately mere months after investing a large portion of his wealth,  the Great Fire of Chicago swept through and turned his investments to ashes... 

With the grief of his loss compounded by the strain of financial loss, Horatio planned to get away for awhile.. You know, get out of town and get his head on straight.

He booked passage on a ship that was headed to Europe. The plan was to take his lovely wife and their four daughters away from the site of so much heartache. Just before sailing, business got crazy and Horatio sent his family on ahead of him. 

Horatio: "Hey honey.. How about you and the girls head over to Europe early... Relax in Paris for a few days, you know... Shop, eat cupcakes. I'll get the boss off my back, get some hours in and I'll be over before you can say 'Spafford family vaycay.." 

So... Anna and the girls set off. 

Horatio went about his business.

One day, a telegram arrived at his office. 

From Anna.

It began..."saved alone..." 

It continued. It told Horatio, the dad who had already buried a 4 year old son, that tragedy had laid hold of the ship and it had sunk to the depths of the ocean, taking his four daughters with it. They were 11,

9,

5 and 2 years old.

Horatio....

Buried his son.

The fire consumed his wealth.

The ocean swallowed up his girls.

Horatio G. Spafford. 

A man who intimately knew the breath sucking wrench of grief. He knew the exhaustion that creeps up and folds around you in the moments that those body wracking sobs ease up. He knew the numbness that comes with each reminder that death has visited and taken what you earnestly thought was yours to keep. 

I'm a fan of Horatio G. Spafford. 

Not because he lost the treasures he valued most on this planet.

But because of his response to that loss.

You see, I reckon that some things in life are pretty much out of our control. 

Like terrible diseases.

Like awful accidents that rob lives.

What is in our control is the way we respond and react to what is before us, staring us down every single day.

And Horatio??? Well... Horatio responded with these words, penned as he stared down the expanse of sea that was the resting place of his babes...his little girls.

Horatio wrote:

When peace like a river 

Attendeth my soul

When sorrows like sea billows roll.

Whatever my lot

You have taught me to say

It is well

It is well

With my soul..

It

Is

Well

I have been singing those words.

A lot.

We sang them on that hardest of days when we stood before a polished timber coffin that held the dearest and most precious of people I had.

Sorrow like sea billows rolled...

Grief and pain whipped up a savage storm.

And I think about Horatio.

Who lost so much.

And who stood and said whatever was his lot, whatever came his way- it is well.

It can be called prophesying.

Self talk.

Speaking life.

It's saying "Hey soul!!!! Hey emotions and intellect and thought process.... IT IS WELL." 

It's not being 'happy' or even 'ok '.. I mean, loss is loss and it sucks. Severely.

But somewhere in the chaos of grief is the lifeline that is echoed in the words "it is well with my soul."

It is well. Because I know that just beyond this veil of humanity is the eternity that waits.

It is well. Because He, the commander-of-angel-armies, Is in control. Even when I can't see it or feel it... Especially then.

Weather I am in a season of peace

Or in a surging storm of heartache..

It is well with my soul. 

Sheldon is the greatest example of this at the moment. 

He is asked often how he is going, and how his faith is holding up...

And his answer, unswervingly, is that his reliance and trust is not dependent on the outcome of tomorrow. Whatever his lot...WHATEVER his lot- it is well with his soul.

Let me leave you, dear hearts, with this. 

The hope that is ours.

The balm that soothes the sting of loss.

This final thought, that was my beautiful mums great joy- the joy of her salvation.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but in whole

Is nailed to His cross

And I bear it no more

Praise The Lord

Praise The Lord 

Oh my soul....

Looking for a new normal.

Life has changed.
The changes are subtle and they are glaring.
Change is meant to happen- it's the proof of life  that things change. Yes, change is inevitable- maybe just not in the way it has marched into our world of recent times.

I think back to a time when the most pressing matter that faced me was something that I now consider a triviality..
I have endured the erosion of normal.

Layer by layer my normal has disappeared.

Cancer diagnosis erodes at normal.
Chemotherapy rounds erode at normal.
Death and grief erode at normal.

Watching my family deal with the hand of loss that we have been dealt has eaten into the normality that I prided myself in maintaining.
It's nice to be normal.
Normal is safe and secure.
Normal is bland and unassuming.

Normal was ringing my mum to complain about my husband and his tendency to work late.

That was then.
This is now.

And as much as I would like to revisit 'then' sometimes, I have to learn how to be here in now.

My fear is that I will spend all my time and energy wanting my previous normality that I will miss the new normal that I wake up to every day.

I can't be that person who allowed grief and tragedy to eat away at me until there is merely a shell left..

I am trying to learn how to live this new normal.
How to accept the pace of our days as we cycle through rounds of chemo, walking towards a surgery.
How to accept that I don't get another phone call to mum, another leisurely coffee catchup.
I was talking to my sons today about needing to borrow Grannies car while mine is in the fix-it shop.
And Lukas (7 year old)  said, "how can you even talk about her, even say her name, without crying? My throat hurts so much right now because I want to cry whenever I hear someone say Granny."
It made me want to pull over and howl. I told him to cry whenever he needed to. That it's ok to cry.
And I asked him what his favorite memory of Granny is. His reply was going to the beach with her.
And then he said "...but now that's your job. To take me to the beach. I love it there..."

So this is the new normal.

I'm finding little snippets of it everyday.
Its all around me, I just need to see it.

The thing I have realised is that simply because my normal has changed, good times and beauty and peace are still available.
They are all there... In this new normal.

A lesson in the art of waiting.

We are waiting.
I don't like that word much right now.
When all the beautifully well meaning people ask me:
"How are you going? What is happening??"
I want to reply with gusto:
"We are fighting.. we are in treatment.."

Instead, my reply is:
"We are waiting...."
Waiting for a phone call to say the treatment is approved, now let's annihilate those life sucking tumors.
Waiting for the battle to start.
Waiting for the distance between our little family to stretch out between us.

I'm not saying I want what the end of waiting will bring us.
I'm not eager to have my husband get on a plane and fly away from us.
I'm not excited about the second stage of treatment.

But when the waiting is done, the fight resumes.
I know that this week has been tough on Sheldon. He had been busily leaving long 'to do'  lists for his staff at work. He has been meeting with doctors and bankers, making sure that every eventuality has a covered base.
But niggling in the back of his mind is the thought that each moment that we are WAITING is a moment where the cancer is not under all guns drawn attack.

I wrote a song a lifetime ago. It said:
"Waiting for a perfect life
Seems to take so long...
Until my waiting
Anticipating
Becomes my willingness
To draw closer
Closer to the place
Where I wait on You."

So my words have circled back to chomp uncomfortably on my backside.
Yes... We are waiting.
Yes... I would prefer to be fighting rather than waiting.

But I have today.
We have today.
And I get to choose to be frustrated in the wait or satisfied in the knowledge that waiting is not long term.
It's not.
Someday soon we will get that call and he will board that plane. All too soon he will start that new drug. Before we know it we will be knee deep in the battle.

So maybe waiting is the gift in all of this. Maybe it's the time we need.
Time to sit at the beach on a Saturday morning and watch our boys jumping waves.
Time to catch up on episodes of Dr.Who that, strangely, neither of us have seen before.
Time to prepare ourselves for whatever it is that is before us.

Maybe it is the act of waiting that calms the heart and sharpens the mind.

Maybe, instead of waiting FOR something to happen, I should wait ON the One who provides me strength and refuge.

"They that WAIT UPON the Lord will get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles..." (Isaiah 40)

I'm mistaken in my thinking that in waiting I am powerless and nothing is happening.

In those moments of the wait I get a chance to take stock of what has been, what is now and what comes before.

I get to stand still at the crossroads, for that is where waiting always happens- at a crossroads of what was and what will be.

So, if you are waiting for something to happen. If you are at a crossroads of what was and what will be, can I encourage you to join me in welcoming the wait.
Appreciating what the wait is allowing you.
Taking the stillness of the wait and finding a moment of refreshing and renewing.
Let waiting become a willingness to draw closer to the One who renews and refreshes.

And when the wait is over we will fight.

Hello... Again.

We've been somewhere near here before.
Close to this juncture..
Nearby this path of 'what-ifs' and 'why, oh why'..
It all looks familiar and yet it's heartbreaking in the new aspects we are facing.

Yes..it's been a while since I wrote to you all.
I was quiet for a while. Busy enjoying normality...
And now- well, I guess this is hello again.

Here's what's been happening in my little world:
* we fought hard when the cancer diagnosis was first given and we saw great success for 12 months of the phase 1 chemo treatment.
* we moved north to be around the support force that is our families.
* we both got amazing jobs. We love our jobs
* we enjoyed the serenity of our little house...

And in the days and weeks and months that slid by, I relaxed.
I found myself wondering what I had been worried about when diagnosis and prognosis and treatment were all new words.
After all... Things had been bad and scary at the start, but surely those days were a thing of the past.. right????!!! Surely my family had experienced enough of a rough time.

And then my world rocked...no, shattered into a gazillion pieces on Easter Sunday. My strong, courageous, noisy, brilliant, generous mum went. Just like that. She was here, and then she went. Just one breath. That's the difference between being here and being gone.
We grieved and I honestly didn't know what I would do without my go-to person.

And I thought.... Ok, now I can't be stretched anymore.
We've dealt with the cancer diagnosis and those hellish early days.
We've transplanted our lives...
We've said goodbye to mum....
Enough already.

Sheldon got on a plane this week. He flew into Sydney to have the checkup. The last time he had been there, it was glowing good news. Cancer shrinking. Cancer being beaten back. Time was ours, stretching out in front of us. It was a great checkup.

That was then.

On Wednesday afternoon, at 3:02pm, I heard his voice on the other end of the line. It wavered and cracked wide open as the words I desperately didn't want to hear were said... "Babe... It's not good. Not good at all.."

And everything stopped.
The world actually stopped spinning.
Just for a second.
That second.

This is now.

So.... Here we are. At the starting line of a path called "phase 2"..."plan B"....
Plan B is a new type of chemo.
The word on the street is that it's not a walk in the park... It's a tougher treatment than what we've known. We fervently hope that Sheldon responds well.
Because fighting this is a given.
It's not an option to NOT go down this path.
Their names are Krystopher, Matthew and Lukas.

Hello again.
I have to say- I didn't miss talking to you all while I was busy living our life .

I write this so you know.
So you can keep up to date
So you can know what to close your eyes and whisper a prayer about...

I write this so it doesn't drown me... Swamp me...
Wring me out....

Writing helps me sort my head out.
So thanks for reading this... This sorting room for my thoughts and my questions and my ups and my downs.

Tomorrow we are taking the boys to search for platypus, to have a picnic in the mountains and make some memories.

That's a happy day.

That's a nice day..

It's been a while since last I put pen to paper (figuratively, of course) and put down some thoughts.
There is a simple reason for that- in the past couple of months my thoughts have resembled the arid waste land of central Kalahari desert.
Imagine tumbleweeds blowing down an empty dirt track.
Or wind whipping sand over a stretch of dunes.
Yup... That has been the vista of my thought world.

The inner world of one Mrs. Suz has been worn out, tired....
I honestly think the initial adrenaline fuelled weeks of diagnosis, moving, appointments, waiting rooms, scans, treatment plans, going back to work - all culminated in a little siesta of sorts in my mind.
I still functioned, I just had no words to say or write that resembled anything remotely coherent.

It's a bit like this:

In early January of this year, everything that could be shaken was shaken.
And not just a little jiggle to see if we were awake, but a Hurricane strength shake.

And after every life altering shake up there comes the time of recovery.
You recover and you take stock.
You rummage through the wreckage and salvage what needs to be saved.


My mind has been in recovery mode... Rummaging through the ruins and the debris, pulling out the valuables that need to stay with me.

And after the recovery effort comes the rebuild.
And now it's time for some rebuilding.


Sheldon has been in Sydney this week for his oncologist appointment. He has been carrying a weight of "I hope this treatment is working" that I have been shouldering. In fact, everyone in our world has been waiting and hoping and praying that the treatment is working..
He had his CT scan Tuesday and on Wednesday went to see Prof. Beale at the Cancer centre.

You need something to work with when you rebuild. Some tools, some materials..

The treatment is working.
The cancer is shrinking.
There's our material.
A bit of tangible hope.

Let me be honest: having hope without proof is doable, but it's bloody tough work.
It stretches faith.
It says "believe that things are going to be fine without knowing if things are going to be fine."
It's hard work.
It says "trust that there is a rhyme and a rhythm and a reason when all you hear is discordant chaos."

Yes, there is always hope.
And when hope bears fruit and becomes tangible, oh the sweet relief.
Having hope is crucial.
Holding hope when it starts to flourish and show results.... That's a nice day.
Getting the break you've been holding out for... That's a nice day.
Seeing the benefit of the hard yards... That's a nice day.
Hope realised.. That's a nice day.


So..... After almost 6 months of walking the tension of truly horrible and hopeful peace, we have to learn how to live this new life we find ourselves in.

I start full time work next term.
Sheldon has a little two bedroom cottage,( no actually, it's more a shack..) to paint.
We are taking the boys on our first family holiday next week.
Sadie the dog has to adjust to farm life. She's going to love it. (Our poor chickens!!)
We have bills and loans and repayments that need attention.
It's rebuilding.
It's learning how to live after the storm.

There is always hope.

I read something today.
It was lovely.
It was about someone who was at the edge of despair..
Someone who was at the end of their tether...
Someone who had been knocked down from the resting place of normality and then royally kicked.
This person, this broken being was on a diet of tears... Tears for breakfast, tears for supper.
And in the place of pain and seemingly bleak darkness, this person stops to ponder.
They "empty the pockets of their life"..
They take stock.
They line up the disappointments and the heartbreaks..
They name and number the moment of being disillusioned and left behind..
And in the rubble of their days they seize a moment of illumination.
A moment to scream hope at their weary soul.
And they see through the haze and catch a glimpse of a brighter day.
Hope.

So.. Here it is. Again.
The lesson I learn again..and again.
Trouble may come.
Sorrow may arrive.
Disillusioned days are maybe just around the corner.
The skies above may be dark, laden with the threat of that storm.
And yet there is that voice that screams hope at a weary soul.
It might start as a whisper.
Lost in the noise of the fight.
And yet there it is.
Hope.

See.. This is the deal.
And I keep stating the deal.
Because the deal is worth stating.
Trouble CAN NOT be allowed to take you out.
If you are on a diet of tears..
If you have emptied the pockets of your life and are left shaking your head at the disarray and the shards of broken dreams..
If you have lost sight of the highs in the depths of your lows..
If the pain of loss or the threat of sorrow is on the menu...
Well... Ok.
I hear you.
I know.
Seriously..
We have been through some tough days in the past few months.
Cancer ain't a walk in the park.
Redundancy isn't a fun-land joint you want to keep visiting.
Leaving a home we had sewn our hearts into has been, well... Painful.
I was on a diet of tears.
I emptied the pockets of my life.
I was left a bit bereft.
Trouble came my way and it threatened to take me out.
It reared up and it was ugly.
It stands there still.. Sneering at us. That troublesome trouble.
And some days, I will admit that it beats me up.
It kicks my arse all over the place.
It silences me with its enormity.
But it doesn't take me out.
I lift up my battle weary hand and say "uh uh trouble. Talk to the hand."
I whisper and sometimes I even scream at my soul, "come on!!!!Pick yourself up!!!"

So. If you are staring trouble down, give yourself a good talking to.
Say "yep trouble.. I see you, (messing up all my plans). I hear you, (making noise as you stir the quiet waters of normality). But hear me: you will not take me out. Trouble: you will come and go. So, I see you coming and I can't wait to see you going. I choose to smile at this storm. I choose to see the beautiful in the broken. I choose the magnificent tension of my every day. So... There. YOU CAN'T TAKE ME OUT."
And all of this is said to the soundtrack of survivor. "I'm a survivor..ain't gunna give up.."

You a survivor.
You ain't gunna give up.
Because there is always hope.
There is always hope.
Peace out.
Xoxoxo