Courage

Today I cried.

Words have been popping into my head.  Words like courage.  And resiliency. Humility.
Today Edd lost his hair.  Oh, he has a little bit left but a significant amount has fallen out now so as to be able to honestly say he is balding.  It happened exactly when we were told it would.  Into the third week of his three-week radiation treatment.  I thought we were ready and prepared but when I saw him after his shower I saw a man who was putting on a face of courage.  I also knew he needed acceptance.  I kissed him and told him I see way past his lack of hair.  I see deep into the man who gives me so much.  Who has so much strength and selflessness.
 
I wasn’t saddened that he lost his hair.  Hair is just… well, hair… but I saw a  man who has had to adjust over and over again.  Truth be told I have had to adjust too.  Over and over.  Cancer has moves.  Powerful moves and unexpected moves
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I’m in a place I can’t just pop out of.  I have to live it.  I can’t pretend I’m not here and try to change my life.  I feel as though it’s a dormant season and there is a reason for it.  There is a purpose in it.  I don’t know what it is, but I have to be open and just allow life, LIFE, to unfold.  It’s  not that unusual  for my tears to flow, but I was able to isolate one of the reasons.

I cried because I met courage.  I cried because of the horribleness of cancer and yet how it causes people to reach into the best part of themselves.  Deep places that you never even knew were there.  I met courage in the face of my husband.  I met it also in myself.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.  ~Ambrose Redmoon