I just spent way, way too much time wrapping presents \u2014 which is partly an illustration of the material abundance in the Actuary household, and partly that this year we ended up with a lot of smaller presents instead of just a couple big-ticket items. \u00a0Also, my husband went to bed early because he signed up to be the 4 AM link in a prayer-chain (yeah, he initially thought he would kill two birds with one stone: \u00a0he was scheduled for the 3 \u2013 7 AM PADS shift \u2014 the rotating-churches homeless shelter \u2014 but then he was replaced with a father-son team, but still has the 4 AM alarm set, and he\u2019ll wrap additional presents afterwards). <\/p>\n
The prayer chain is for a friend of the family, and fellow-assistant-scoutmaster, who was diagnosed last week with stage 4 kidney cancer. \u00a0He\u2019s started radiation treatments (no chemo for this type of cancer), and is in a clinical trial for a new treatment and is hopeful (at least outwardly) that this will help him defeat the otherwise-bad odds. \u00a0This is the sort of circumstance in which we all would throw ourselves into providing meals and so on, but nothing\u2019s really happened yet, except the diagnosis. \u00a0My husband and I also talked about whether they\u2019ll need financial help, with out-of-pocket medical costs and income loss (depending on what his sick pay benefits are), down the road. \u00a0 But in the meantime, another friend put together the prayer chain, through the magic of SignUpGenius. <\/p>\n
This follows on the sudden death of the father of one of my son\u2019s classmates last spring; the family was well-known in the church. \u00a0And he was my age, more or less! \u00a0(I\u2019m 45.) <\/p>\n
Also: \u00a0when my youngest son was a baby, we tried the \u201cMoms Plus\u201d group at church for a couple weeks. \u00a0One of the other moms, with a baby my son\u2019s age, was dealing with the fact that her daughter was having seizures; at the time, she was visiting specialists looking for a diagnosis. <\/p>\n
Now, my son was late in developing. \u00a0When he was a just past a year old, and wasn\u2019t walking, wasn\u2019t crawling, wasn\u2019t even close to crawling, we got a referral from the doctor and had the Early Intervention team come to evaluate him. \u00a0That was a very difficult day: \u00a0we were told, \u201cyour son is developmentally at the level of a 6 month old.\u201d \u00a0Very hard to hear, as you can imagine, and he spent the next year in physical therapy and occupational therapy, and until just before age 3 in speech therapy. <\/p>\n
The good news is that either the therapy had its intended effect, or he truly was just a late bloomer developmentally, and now, at age 7, he\u2019s doing just fine. <\/p>\n
But I periodically saw mother and daughter at the therapy office, and now I periodically see them at church, and I don\u2019t know the degree of the girl\u2019s disability, but it is clear that things didn\u2019t work out just as well for her, since, well, either she\u2019s unable to walk, or doesn\u2019t walk well, because I see her mom or dad carrying her. <\/p>\n
So I find myself with mixed emotions. \u00a0In the first place, I\u2019m grateful that things worked out for us. \u00a0(My other sons have other issues, but that\u2019s another story.) \u00a0But even the very concept of \u201cgratitude\u201d implies, \u201cGod blessed us with, in the end, a typically-developing child\u201d \u2014 and at the same time, didn\u2019t bless the G\u2014- family, not to mention the C\u2014 family that lost a father\/husband and the N\u2014- family that\u2019s now dealing with cancer. \u00a0And yet \u2014 I admit: \u00a0I\u2019m glad it\u2019s not me widowed at an early age.<\/p>\n
In any case, of course, it\u2019s a reminder that, even though the days of losing multiple children to an early death (made clear when I was doing my genealogical research a couple years ago) are gone, the notion that we can expect our lives to be free from these tragedies is a bit blind to the realities of life. <\/p>\n
Anyway, it\u2019s late, and I\u2019m having trouble formulating things precisely. \u00a0So I\u2019ll just end with the usual cop-out question: \u00a0what do you think?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just spent way, way too much time wrapping presents \u2014 which is partly an illustration of the material abundance in the Actuary household, and partly that this year we ended up with a lot of smaller presents instead of just a couple big-ticket items. \u00a0Also, my husband went to bed early because he signed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[107,112],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-faith"],"yoast_head":"\n