​“Do you see them?” 
 
Mom stood behind my shoulder. The anticipation rolled off her skin like the spring sun dripping down my parents’ driveway. 
 
“Hold on a sec,” I told her. My fingers pulled back the green frame of leaves. I peered inside the shrubbery. 
 
Yup. Mom was right. There it was. Smack dab in the middle of the tallest shrub between the sidewalk and my parents’ garage.
 
The bird nest was the clear result of instinctual architecture. A tangle of twigs and twine. Lopsided, but sturdy. Mama bird done good.
 
“See them?” my mom asked me again. Her voice pitched high with expectation and excitement. 
 
I lifted my heels off the ground to get a closer look. A bird chirped from one of the nearby oak limbs. The breeze twisted through the trees. 
 
“Oh yep,” I whispered as I looked down. “I see them.”
 
Three oval eggs sat side-by-side in the bottom of the nest’s belly. Off-white with brown specks. Like they were covered in freckles, or dipped in Oreo cookie crumbs. 
 
“Those are the cardinal eggs,” Mom explained. “Isn’t that cool?”
 
“Very cool,” I breathed. I counted the eggs again. 1, 2, 3. 
 
Mom watches the wooded backyard like the paparazzi dying to get a picture of Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. A maroon-covered book titled “Birds of Michigan” and small set of black binoculars are always at the ready under the kitchen window, or on the back porch. Prime bird watching spots. 
 
She told us that she discovered the nest a few days earlier. Cardinals are my mom’s favorite, second only to bluebirds. When Mom’s mom passed away when I was eight, we attributed a red cardinal to Grandma Phyllis. She loved to watch the cardinals from the big picture window at her house in St. Paul. 
 
“There’s Grandma,” our family says whenever we see a rush of red wings. We feel better when we see cardinals.  More hopeful. Less alone. I don’t know. Something.
 
Watching Mother Nature go to work never gets old for me. Unless she’s working the night shift during the winter, dumping king-size comforters of snow across our roads. 
 
Still, I forget that Mother Nature wears a food chain that drapes around her neck. She does nothing without her ever-important accessory.
 
We have no say in the outfit. As humans, we are an impactful link in the chain. We help spur actions and reactions. Define the hunter and the hunted. 
 
Mother Nature is not too shy to remind us where we all stand. 
 
The following week after seeing the cardinal eggs, my husband and I went back to my parents’ house for a Memorial Day cookout. The afternoon was warm, the grass was green, and summer was ushering spring out the door like a gentleman who minds his manners, but can’t hide the fact that he wants the girl to leave. 
 
We brought Daisy to swim in my parents’ pond. She’s obsessed with the water and loves to launch herself off the old wooden dock into the murky green-blue water. My brother and his girlfriend joined us. They brought Bentley, their German Shorthaired Pointer. The dogs were a couple of besties, galloping side-by-side after tennis balls and kicking up dead leaves as they tramped through the woods at warp speed. 
 
The round metal grill sizzled when Mom placed the hot dogs on the grate. I could hear Dad and Adam laughing by the pond, followed by the whoosh of a splash from the pups. The air smelled like hot charcoal and new grass and fresh air.   
 
With a book in my lap and cheap black sunglasses on my nose, I sat near the front yard in a red folding chair. The black netting of the cup holders were chewed away (courtesy of Daisy), leaving empty holes I could put my hands through. The sun felt warm. I felt happy.  
 
My eyes followed wings as the mama cardinal flew in and out of the shrub, feeding the eggs that cracked open to become breathing babies. I smiled at the sight. 
 
“Do you want to see the cardinal nest?” my mom offered my brother’s girlfriend, Sage. Once Mom finds a new nest or identifies a bird, she loves to share the knowledge. 
 
“Sure,” Sage said. I kept my eyes on my book. It was just getting to the good part. The main character and the guy she liked were about to get together. 
 
 “Ahhh!” 
 
I looked up at the sound of my mom’s shriek. Panic caked her face as she held the cardinal nest high above her head. Sage had her own hands full as she tried to hold back her dog, who was lunging at the nest with intensity and strength. 
 
“Bentley, no! NO.” Sage scolded. She tugged at the dog’s collar, pulling against the weight with a heave. 
 
“She can smell the birds, she knows they’re in this nest, I can’t believe it.” The words tumbled out of my mom’s mouth as quickly as she thought them. She looked at me, exasperated. Her eyebrows furrowed across her forehead.
 
Sage pulled Bentley away while Mom tried to place the nest back into the bush. I sat in my chair, too stunned at the scene to move.
 
“Call your dad up here,” Mom ordered. 
 
“Dad!” My voice boomed. 
 
The dog lunged again, breaking free from Sage’s grasp. 
 
“Daaaaaahhhhhhd,” I yelled again. 
 
“Whaaaat?” Dad answered, his voice losing volume as it carried from the back of the pond.
 
“Come here!” I called back. 
 
“Oh no, no, no, no,” Mom shrieked again, covering the branches with her hands as Bentley lunged at the birds.
 
“Bentley, stop it!” Sage repeated. She pulled the dog back and tried to step away from the shrub. 
 
Dripping with pond water, Daisy came galloping toward me, Dad and Adam behind her. I set my book on the ground and stood up from the chair.
 
“Come on, let’s go pups,” I directed. I jogged back toward the pond, away from the scene of the crime. Daisy followed me, while Sage redirected Bentley back toward my brother near the pond. With Daisy refocused on the pond, I turned again toward the shrub, where Mom and Dad and Adam stood.
 
Adam took the nest from Mom. It still held the three balls of bird inside. He began moving branches, peeling back the shrub’s layers for a place to reposition the nest. Mom reported to Dad what just had happened. 
 
“The mom probably won’t come back now, huh?” Mom asked Dad. “Since we messed with the nest?”
 
“I don’t know,” he said. 
 
I went inside the house. My gut told me the baby birds were probably goners, which made me feel sad and quiet and weighed down, for some reason. 
 
I told myself they were just birds. There are a lot of birds. These things happen. It was just how Mother Nature worked. You can’t change her rules. 
 
But, I thought as I pictured my mom’s face as she held the nest above her head, they were my mom’s birds. Cardinals. Grandma’s birds. 
 
A few minutes later, I heard the back door open, then shut. Mom climbed up the stairs and found me in my old bedroom.  
 
“Bentley’s a bird dog, she’s designed to do that,” Mom reasoned. I nodded. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. A result of Mother Nature’s food chain, and instinct, and circumstance. 
 
They’re just birds. But my mom was my mom. And I knew she was upset, as much as she tried to hide it. 
 
“Do you think they’ll be OK? I don’t know if the Mama Bird will come back now,” my mom repeated. Yup. This nest situation was traveling the Worrisome Route along the train tracks of my mother’s mind. A never-ending loop. 
 
“Did you put the nest back where it was?” I asked.
 
“Adam tried, but he couldn’t,” Mom glanced out the window. “The branches were knocked all over the place. He put it a bit higher than where it originally was.”
 
“I’m sure they’ll find it,” I said, referring to the baby birds’ parents. We had seen the dad, a burst of bright red feathers, feeding the babies just as much as the mom. 
 
Despite my words, my own instinct inside my gut poked and prodded at my brain. We had always heard that birds wouldn’t have anything to do with their babies if they had contact with humans. 
 
Mom and I went back outside. 
 
“Let’s move the nest,” Dad suggested when he saw us in the driveway. “Put it inside the garage while we eat dinner so Bentley won’t try to get the birds again. After dinner, we’ll try to put the nest back.”
 
Mom reluctantly agreed. The baby birds, nestled inside the only home they knew, were transplanted to the roof of the red Ford Focus inside the garage.  
 
We went inside and ate hot dogs with red ketchup and yellow mustard. Taco salad with crunchy Doritos on top. Ladles of thick beans and glasses of lemonade. 
 
We didn’t talk about the birds.
 
After dinner, Adam and I left to meet his family for ice cream. I tried to put the whole Nest Situation out of my mind. What was done was done. 
 
Hopefully Mom felt the same way. I imagined the complex map of my mother’s mind. Lots of Worry Trails. 
 
Yeah, doubt it. 
 
We returned to my parents’ house to pick up Daisy an hour later. As Adam drove down my parents’ gravel driveway, I could see the outline of my mom by the shrub near the garage. Dad sat in the red chair with the chewed-out cup holders. Adam parked. We stepped out into the evening air. An orchestra of crickets had replaced the afternoon’s bird symphony.  
 
“They can’t find the nest,” Mom said as soon as my feet hit the cement. Her voice dropped with disappointment. “We put the nest back, but we had to put it higher. In a different spot.”
 
“The mom came back,” Dad added, “but she’s so dumb, she went back to where the nest originally was. She couldn’t find them.” He shook his head in frustration. Dad has spent his life trying to patch the sadness holes that get poked in my mom’s heart. When they were newlyweds and Mom was missing her home back in Minnesota during Easter, Dad hid eggs around their apartment for Mom to find. 
 
He hates seeing her upset…but he hates when he can’t do anything about it even more. I guess I was the same way, too. We try to be the protectors of Mom’s happiness. As much as we can, anyway. 
 
“I tried to feed them,” Mom said. “Dad found me some worms.” She held up a red lid that held the squirming dark earth eaters. “They had their mouths open when I went to feed them, but then they heard my voice and shut up.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have talked.” 
 
I took a step toward the shrub and pulled back the higher leaves. Sure enough, the baby cardinals sat there, fluffy and alive. But their eyes were shut. So were their yellow mouths. They knew I wasn’t their mother. It was the ultimate game of “Can’t see you, so you can’t see me.” 
 
“I need tweezers,” Mom complained. “I’ll try to feed them again, but the problem is, the worms get stuck to my fingers.” She went inside.
 
Adam stood next to me. Dad sat in the red chair. Quiet. 
 
“Are the birds gonna die?” I asked him. I could always get straight to the point with Dad.  
 
“I don’t know,” he answered, raising his eyebrows in uncertainty. “They say it’s hard when you mess with the nest.”
 
I nodded. My heart fell. 
 
“Guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Dad said. 
 
I glanced back at the baby birds, new and fresh and helpless. Waiting. Their innocence broke my heart. Their instinctual reliance on their parents in order to live. The fact that they knew food would come…and the fact that we knew it probably wouldn’t. 
 
I pushed the thought out of the way. These things happened, I reminded myself. 
They’re. Just. Birds. 
End of story. 
 
But they were more than that, I reasoned. The birds were a symbol of my mom’s happiness. Her joy at finding the eggs, and showing the nest to all of us, at watching the babies grow. Now the scenario was stunted, and she blamed herself.  We all felt helpless at the disruption of my mom’s happiness.
 
Adam and I loaded Daisy in the back of the car. The air blew back our dog’s ears as we drove home.
 
“I’m kinda bummed about the birds,” I confessed.
 
“Me too,” he said.
 
I was glad I didn’t have to watch them die though,I thought. I tried not to picture the eventual lifeless birds in the brown nest. I tried not to see the clueless cardinal, returning to the same spot again and again, baffled by the fact that her babies were gone.
 
The next day, Mom called me. I was afraid to answer. I didn’t want to hear the details about the baby birds impending death, or hear the sadness in my mom’s voice as she put her worries on repeat. 
 
Still, I pressed the ANSWER button on my cell phone. “Hey Mom.”
 
“Honey!” My mom’s voice crackled in my ear with spark. “Guess what!”
 
“What?” I stood still. 
 
“We moved the nest back to where it originally was, and the parents found the babies.” 
 
“Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe it. 
 
“Yep,” she answered, breathless. “Dad said he saw the mom and dad go in several times to feed them, and now they’re out of the nest.”
 
“What do you mean, ‘they’re out of the nest’?”
 
“They babies are big enough that they hopped out. They’re OK!” Mom paused, then said, “I’ve named them.”
 
“Oh yeah?”
 
“Yes. Faith, Hope, and Love. I figured it was appropriate, you know?”
 
I smiled into the phone.
 
“I like it, Mom. Perfect names.”
 
“I thought so, too.”
 
“I can’t believe they’re OK.”
 
“I know, right?” Mom sighed with relief. “You should write about this.”
 
“Yeah?”
 
“It’s such a good story, don’t you think?” I could feel her smile through the phone. 
 
Later that day, Mom texted me photos of the birds. Her joy pounced off my screen with multiple exclamation marks. I smiled at the close-up picture of one of the birds, staring directly at the camera with confidence while it sat on a branch. No longer stuck in the nest. One step away from total independence.
 
This one was Faith, Mom told me. My phone buzzed with another text.
MOM: You need to write the bird story!
 
So here it is, Mom. Here it is. 
 
Another lesson from the birds. 
I’ll take it. 

Website makeover coming soon! Updates! And new info. And more! 

​So many exclamation marks!!!

My husband surprised me by painting the room to the right of the stairs when I was out of town. 

He held the handle of the soft, purple roller in his callused hands. He cracked open the paint can. Carefully poured the creamy liquid into clear plastic trays. Like a sly finger in a bowl of cookie dough, he dipped the roller into the tray. 

Swipe. 
​Swipe. 
Up. 
Down. 

He covered the walls in a flavorful yellow called Meringue. I picked the shade after perusing Pinterest and carefully comparing a rainbow of paint chips at the Home Depot.

“Better, right?” he told me when I came home and followed me upstairs. My eyes looked like saucers as I spun around in this sudden room of sunshine. “I wanted it to feel like yours.” 

“I LOVE it,” I said. “I. Love. It. I can’t believe you did this.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and closed my eyes. He smelled like turpentine and soap. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” 

In another life in another decade, the first homeowner wallpapered this room. The second pair of homeowners concealed the wallpaper with brown paint. 

Not dark brown. Not light brown. 
Just…brown. 
The color of cheap coffee, or milk chocolate, or fake leather. 
The color of my mom’s eyes when she’s unimpressed with a movie, or exhausted from a 12-hour night shift at the hospital. 

The brown paint had puckered over the layer of patterned paper. The wallpaper wasn’t visible, but it refused to go unnoticed. A silent “screw you” to the people who didn’t think she was good enough.

When we first toured the house, the brown bubbled paint in the small room was a bit….off-putting. 

Okay. Ugly. It was ugly. 

“We’ll have to paint in here, huh?” I asked my husband. I had never painted a room before. The thought of this new task made me nervous the way new tasks always did. 

He nodded. “Yeah, we can do that, no problem.”

I glanced around the narrow room. It was almost too small for a bedroom. Too big for a closet. One large window stared at the plowed corn fields and modest ranch houses lining the street. 


A friend from church—a former professional painter named John—came over to check out our house once the ink was dry on the closing papers.

“We definitely have to change the color in here,” I admitted as I stepped into the small brown room, John and Adam following suit. John’s lined face turned toward the white popcorn ceiling. His eyes moved from wall to wall. 

“Well, if you’re gonna be in here a lot, then you better paint it something that makes you happy,” he offered in his gravel voice. John drops wisdom the way people drop pennies. 

His advice is why I picked out meringue yellow to cover up the dull brown. I wanted sunshine and bright and open. 

I wanted happy. 

And happy is how I felt when Adam showed me the freshly-painted walls. From that day on, we’ve slowly put the room together, piece by piece:

White book shelves lined with colorful book spines.
A wooden sparrow figurine. 
A white office chair threaded with thin, silver threads—a Christmas gift from my parents. 
A cream knit rug woven with a magenta diamond pattern. I got it on clearance at TJ Maxx. 
Each item further transformed the room from a forgotten, brown space….to my dream writing office. 

The night we moved into the new house, Adam and I laid on the wooden floor in the living room and closed our eyes. For the first time, it sunk in that we were officially homeowners. The rooms held strangers’ memories and smelled like other people, but soon, the signs would fade.

The scents of my cinnamon french toast and Adam’s ocean-scented shampoo and thick Vanilla Bean candles from Bath & Body Works would waft through the hallway and up the stairs. 
Our first Christmas tree, tall and chubby and pokey, would glimmer in the front window. 
Our dancing steps would cover the hardwood floors in the kitchen.
Our new chocolate lab puppy would make messes and tippy-tap with her paws and run in the back yard.
Soon, it wouldn’t be some other people’s former house. It would be our current home. 
We’d leave our mark here.
Ours. 

On March 3, we closed on our house…which means it’s soon our one-year “homeowner-iversary.” It’s been an adventure. It’s been a learning experience. 
​
Today, I walk into my office. I sit on the chair behind the desk and stare at the yellow walls. I breathe in the air and smile. Because it smells like home. 

It’s January 8. The second week of the new year. 
 
Where has the time gone? 
 
Many places, the clock on the wall whispers. It breathes with a steady tick, tick, tick. That sound….A constant reminder of how precious every second is. How nothing is the same and everything can change in an instant.
 
Tick, tick, tick. 
 
Where has the time gone?
 
It stopped at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night in March of 2017. Kelly called me. She asked if I was sitting down. Then she said the word I didn’t want to hear….never expected to hear. 
 
Cancer.
 
Time stopped that night. It stayed frozen as I sat on the bedroom floor with the phone to my ear and my head in my hands.
 
Time stopped. 
 
But then it started again. Because time waits for no one. 
 
Where did the time go? I repeated.
 
Many places, the clock echoed.
 
Time passed in the hospital. The numerous times Kelly walked through the doors of U of M hospital in Ann Arbor to treat her aggressive multiple myeloma that lived in her bones.
 
But it was just me with her that memorable Wednesday afternoon. Kel’s routine check-up ended with an ER visit. The hospital security guard printed my picture for an ID to clip onto my coat while Kelly waited to be admitted. 
 
“I’ll just need you to look into the lens right here so we can get your photo,” the guard directed me, pointing at the small black digital camera on the front desk. 
 
I shifted my feet. I didn’t know if I should smile or not. A surprise trip to the ER wasn’t exactly A smile-worthy situation.
 
“Here you go,” the guard said. He handed me the small ID card. The silver clip gleamed. 
 
I peered at the grainy photo. The black ink dots blended together. I could barely see my half-smile with no teeth. 
 
I rolled my lifelong friend to the ER room in the corner of a long hallway, right next to the bathrooms. We waited. She shared her dry chicken from the cafeteria with me. We laughed until we cried when I fell off of her bed right onto the white linoleum. We did our best to forget that we were in a hospital. It worked. For the most part.
 
Between the rotating questions from doctors wearing gray scrubs that looked comfortable and white coats that looked important, we watched “My 600 Pound Life” on the old TV from the ceiling and took pictures using the devil and angel filter on SnapChat. We waited. We got the verdict that her dizziness was related to vertigo, and that we could go home. We returned, forever changed. Closer than ever.
 
Where did the time go?
 
We folded seconds between thin, paper hospital gowns. 
We stamped moments in our memories as we swapped text messages of dopey-looking basset hounds.
We cupped minutes in our palms as we stood in the doorway of a clothing boutique in Bay City a month before her transplant. We watched the rain splatter across the pavement, then counted to three. We shrieked and held hands as we ran to my car across the street. 
 
Where did the time go? 
Time shifted. Sometimes, hours felt like seconds. 
Other times, days felt like years.
 
Time sat with her in beige chairs. Lingered in chemo bags. Stabbed with sharp needles. 
It mixed with the hospital’s stale air, her ginger ale’s bubbles, the notes of an Ed Sheeran song as we drove home from Ann Arbor. 
Curled up alongside her dark hair scattered across the salon’s wooden floor. Her curls looked like commas. As if they were saying, “This isn’t the end of your story. This is just a pause in the sentence.” 
 
Time marched along. From early spring mornings to hot summer days to golden fall nights. It followed us as we walked with our pockets packed with worries and jokes. To the chemo. And the transplant. 
 
Time stopped again when Kelly called me. I had just pulled in my driveway from work. The sky was a ceiling of gray. Our new Michigan normal. The summer sun had traded places with the early winter clouds a long time ago. 
 
“Are you sitting down?” she asked. 
 
“Yes, but I’m nervous…the last time you called and asked if I was sitting down, you told me the doctors think you have cancer.” 
 
She chuckled lightly. “I’m going to send you something, okay?” 
 
“Okay…” I held my breath. 
 
My phone chirped with a text message. I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at the  screenshot she sent me. It was an email from her doctor.
 
“Pretty fantastic results. These labs show complete remission.”
 
My shrieks and sobs started as I soon as held the phone back up to my ear. My heart felt light and heavy at the same time. 
 
“You’re in remission?” I croaked. 
 
“I am,” she said in a small, grateful voice. A hint of disbelief. The day we had waited-hoped-prayed for had finally arrived.
 
“You DID it,” I marveled at the magnitude of what this meant. “YOU DID IT! You’re in REMISSION.” Adrenaline filled my veins now as realization dawned on me. Her bones were cancer-free. She was healthy again. 
 
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. 
 
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered back. And I am. I always will be. 
 
For Kelly, each continuous chemo-like pill represents another day and more time.  And though there is currently no cure for multiple myeloma, someday there will be. Maybe it will take a day. A month. A year. But until then, we have time.
 
 
So where did the time go in 2017?
 
The time went to spaghetti dinners, and girls’ nights in the sunroom. 
The time went to kind cards and scarves and messages of encouragement. 
The time went to the day I saw her for the first time after her transplant. She had a scarf on her scalp, but her smile was wide. I hugged her in the kitchen and sobbed as soon as I wrapped my arms around her. My voice cracked as I said, “You’re here. It’s you. You look so good. You look SO GOOD.”
 
 
In 2017, the time went toward finding joy in the little things. 
The time went toward praying.
The time went toward battling and growing and loving and surviving. 
The time went toward healing.
And breadsticks. Lots of Olive Garden breadsticks.
 
 
2018, what do you have for us? I wonder.
 
I glance down at the bracelet on my wrist. Gingerly touch the red and green and blue beads on one side, then brush my fingers against the pure white beads on the other side. A silver charm gleams in the middle, connecting the white with the color. STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL, the charm reads in bold, black letters. I bought the bracelet when dear friends and community members and colleagues and supporters hosted and attended a spaghetti dinner in Kelly’s honor. The tough times are tough. But there’s so much beauty and joy in the tribe that surrounds you.
 
I twirl the bracelet beads and think, I know what 2018 has for us. Hopefully a lot of it:
 
Time. 
 
Time to make plans.
To laugh.
To love.
To appreciate.
To live.
 
Let us not waste a single moment.
 

​****Since sharing my blog post this spring about my more-sister-than-friend Kelly and her cancer diagnosis, many generous and kind hearts have reached out to ask about Kelly’s well-being and her next steps. To make the information-sharing process a little bit easier, and gather as many positive thoughts and prayers as we can, here is the latest update on Kelly, posted with her permission. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated for Kelly and her family this week, and these next coming weeks, as her body begins the delicate, deliberate, and debilitating healing process.***
 
 
She told me she was getting chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant this week. So I brought her breadsticks from Olive Garden.
 
It was the Sunday before the infamous First Week of School. Last year at this time, Kelly was gearing up for the chaotic first day like every other teacher.
 
But not this year.
No, this year, while students crack open fresh boxes of Crayola crayons and squeak their new tennis shoes across the school’s tiled linoleum floors, Kelly will be absent from the special ed classroom.
 
Instead, she will be in a hospital room in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  
Again.
A place she’s spent countless hours in, week after week, for the past five months. 
 
But this trip is different. Kelly won’t return right away after this trip. But maybe she’s never completely returned from any of the trips to Ann Arbor. She leaves pieces of herself in that hospital every time she visits: vials of blood, strands of hair, salty tears. 
 
Still…After many long trips and exhausting appointments, the day we’ve anxiously awaited since she received the multiple myeloma diagnosis in March is now here.
 
At 31 years young, Kelly will walk into the hospital this Wednesday, August 30.
She will sit in a beige chair.
She will get hooked up to a cocktail of chemotherapy so poignant, the concoction is comparable to the makeup of mustard gas used in World War II.
She will allow the chemotherapy to invade her body and bully her blood cells. Harassment that leads to healing. 
 
Kelly and her husband Shane discussed the details with me over Olive Garden takeout bags I unloaded on their round kitchen table. To us, OG is literal…the Original Gangster of Comfort Food…in more ways than one. My mom and I brought Olive Garden to the hospital when Kelly’s dad was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007. I brought the warm, drippy, carb-happy, noodle-heavy food containers again when Kelly initially got diagnosed this spring. Olive Garden is now strangely synonymous with solution.
 
When life is crap, my subconscious screams, “Buy the breadsticks!”
 
“I thought the chemo would be yellow, since, you know, mustard gas, but the chemo is blue,” Kelly explained as she sat across from me at the table, chewing the marinara-soaked lasagna from her Tour of Italy meal. After months of witnessing Kelly’s waning appetite, I exhaled relief when she ordered the menu’s tempting trifecta: fettuccine alfredo, chicken parmesan and lasagna. “The nurse told me, ‘Don’t worry, the blue chemo won’t turn you into a smurf….’ Har, har, har.”
 
Kelly rolled her eyes and she expelled a sarcastic fake laugh. The nurse’s corny pun coaxed matching smirks out of our mouths, pushing its way around bites of salad. She sipped her water—filtered and room temperature—out of a glass. She’s never liked cold water, but now the temperature is especially daunting to her especially sensitive teeth.
 
Our dinner seesawed between blissfully average and overwhelmingly abnormal. One minute, the three of us were discussing how to prevent pet pee stains that linger within the carpet (“That stuff will stain a ring in the WOOD underneath the carpet!” Shane huffed with passion.“It happened to a buddy of mine.” ) The next minute, Kelly is tugging her loose-fitting gray shirt to the side to show me her implantation port.
 
“These are called lumens,” Kelly pointed as she looked down at the flesh near the right of her collarbone. 
“LOO-Mens?” I repeated like one of her students. 
“Lumens, yes,” Kelly nodded.
“It sounds like something out of Harry Potter.” I stared at the three small tubes that dangled out of her pale, bruised skin like small Christmas lights.
 
“They are hooked up to a tube inside me that goes up my neck”—her index finger softly traced a path across her throat—“and down my chest, directly into my heart.” She held her finger there. I imagined her heart beating, steady like a clock.
 
“The lumens help so she doesn’t have to keep getting poked all the time,” Shane added. “Less bruising that way.” The tubes hung lifeless and guilty, intentionally avoiding contact. They knew we didn’t really want to need them. 
 
Since Day 1, Shane has soaked in the information on his wife’s disease like a sponge. Caring for her, making her mugs of the warm tea that she loves, keeping others informed while he works long hours to provide for his family.
 
In his mind, though, he’s never doing enough. We all feel that way. Cancer is crippling in its masterful ways. A true magician, it plays mind tricks to make loved ones feel powerless. You do what you can to feel like you’re doing something. Anything. 
 
Hence the Olive Garden breadsticks. 
 
“Are you taking another one?” Kelly turned and mockingly accused her husband as he reached for a garlic butter-soaked breadstick innocently lying in its aluminum-wrapped bed.
 
“I’ve only had two!” he countered. Our laughs bounced around the room.
 
I turned to my left and took in the impressive gallery wall of farmhouse signs and décor clinging to the kitchen’s back wall: 
An oversized antique spoon and fork. 
Distressed gray letters spelling out the word E A T. 
A large metal envelope. 
 
“Shane hung them all,” Kelly’s eyes stared at the gallery wall signs and nodded proudly. She smiled at her husband.“It’s all even and measured.”
 
Shane glowed with pride. He took another bite of his Five Cheese Ziti. On the counter across from me, a glass jar filled with flat brown coffee beans held a balloon in the shape of a monkey. A conversation bubble hovered over the monkey’s head, encouraging us to “Go Bananas!” 
 
“The doctors call Wednesday, which is chemotherapy day, Day 1, but then they call Thursday—stem cell transplant day—Day Zero,” Kelly continued. “Don’t ask me why they do that, though. I’m not sure.” Throughout this whole process, she’s never shied away from talking about the tough stuff. She is anything but an avoider. It’s one of the things I admire most about Kelly.
 
She sighed, then continued. “But basically, they are bringing me as close to death as possible without actually killing me. All my counts…red blood cells, white blood cells…they’ll all be down to nothing. It’s like I’ll have a new birthday.”
 
I speared my salad with the black plastic utensil forks. Crunched on my croutons. Took a sip of the bottled water. Even now, months later, I still have a hard time accepting that this scenario is reality. 
 
“So it’s like you’re starting over,” I said, swallowing. “Like restarting a computer, I guess.”
 
“Pretty much, yeah,” Kelly agreed. “That’s why I can’t really have visitors right away. My immune system will be so weak.”
 
She stood up. “I need to go put a load of laundry in.”
 
Shane and I sat in silence for a moment. “She will need to get immunizations like a newborn baby,” he added gingerly. 
 
I nodded, trying to swallow the frustration that clogged my throat. Right there and then, I wanted to return Kelly’s cancer to wherever it came from, like an unread library book banished to the bottom of a bin with a quick flip of a handle. Easily. Harmlessly. Quickly. Like it was never a part of your life to begin with. 
 
But cancer is a decorated, nail-polished, bedazzled, neon orange elephant in the room.  Even though we acknowledge the elephant as it trumpets around, that still doesn’t mean we want this beast joining us for dinner, grabbing our coveted breadsticks with its trunk. 
 
Kelly returned to the table. She offered me blueberry crumble cake.
 
“Mom made it,” she smiled, saying the three magic words. She knows I’m a big fan of her mother’s baking. Especially the oatmeal cookies. Kathy chocks them full of raisins. Three types of raisins, ‘cause Kathy doesn’t mess around. A trait her daughter inherited.
 
Over square slices of cake and scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, we ate dessert.
Kelly’s ice cream melted into the edge of her cake. The spoon clinked against the plate. She narrowed her eyes.
 
“I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow over at Shelby’s salon,” she told me. “At 6:30. Mom and Dad want me to get a ‘cutie pixie,’ but I kind of want to buzz it all. I don’t want to see my hair fall out into chunks.”
 
My eyes gravitated towards her dark brown waves pulled back into a ponytail. Threads of rainbow—purple, pink, blues—peeked through the brunette strands. The colors were the latest look courtesy of our friend Shelby’s hair expertise. “If I’m going to lose it anyway, I might as well do something fun,” Kelly reasoned. Her rainbow hair looked positively unicorn. Rebellious. Beautiful. 
 
“How short do you think you’ll go?” I now asked.
 
Next to me, Shane slipped off his ball cap. He pointed to his buzzcut wordlessly, the hair more fuzz than hair. 
 
“Like that,” Kelly pointed to her husband’s head. 
 
The abrupt shortness of the hairstyle caught me off guard. Like the lumens imbedded in her chest, this haircut—this buzzcut— would be another visual representation of the cancer clogging Kelly’s body. 
 
“What do the chunks of hair falling out represent to you that you want to avoid?” I asked.
 
“I just think it would be hard to see my hair on the pillow.” She crinkled her eyebrows thoughtfully. “And in a way, I guess, to feel a sense of control.”
 
I nodded. It made sense.
 
Kelly’s gaze shifted to the sliding glass door. In the corner of the yard, a batch of yellow Black-eyed Susan flowers swayed in the summer breeze. Fall is knocking on our door. The leaves are already blushing from the evening cold. 
 
“Daddy said to say goodbye to my flowers before I leave,” she said wistfully. “Because they’ll be dead when I come home.” 
 
Following the chemotherapy and transplant, the hospital will immediately admit Kelly to a room. After weeks of monitoring and tests, she will return home to receive constant and crucial care from her family. The chemo’s bullying side effects that will impact Kelly—mouth sores, loss of appetite, bleeding, hair loss—is a long list, all documented in black ink on a white handout from the hospital. 
 
We threw away our empty takeout containers. I grabbed my leftovers, placed them back into the brown Olive Garden bag, took the bag by the handle and headed to the back door. Photos of Kelly and Shane smiled behind the picture frames’ glass as I turned to face them standing in front of me. 
 
Shane wrapped me in a goodbye hug, then Kelly. Arms around the back, not one of those flimsy one-armed side hugs. Hugs like these are given out freely and generously within our crew these days. Like our arms will keep our feet planted on the ground, if only to keep us all from floating away.
 
“Love you,” I whispered in Kelly’s ear.
“Love you, too.” She squeezed me tighter. 
 
My car had clung to the garlic-butter smell of breadsticks. The smell wafted to my nostrils as I climbed into the driver seat. 
 
It still feels like a punch in the gut to face the facts of this situation, this diagnosis, this reality. But no one said the facts are always beautiful. No one said the facts have to be easy, or smooth. Facts are often rugged, and bruised, and gnarled. They’re the seasoned boxers that won’t back down in the ring.  Round after round, the facts remain.
 
But so do we.
 
 

My tennis shoes squeaked like a wheel that needed grease. I glanced down at my feet framed by hardwood. The hot pink laces stood out amongst the shoe’s black material.

These sneakers require some oil, I thought. Or fuel. Or flames. 
Or bananas. Mario Kart-style. 
Something slick and slippery. Hot and bothered. 
Anything to turn up the heat and make me kick it up a notch. 

With the winter winds waltzing outside, I needed a little spring in my step. I needed to run, to move my legs, to put one step in front of the other even though I was running on empty.

I waited in my living room. 

Sure enough, my guilty conscience arrived. It always shows up during my down time. Oprah beckoned from beyond the television screen. “I eat bread!” she exclaimed, raising her hands in carb-loaded victory. “I love bread!” The couch’s arms released me. I grabbed my car keys off the kitchen counter.

Now I stood still, facing the track in my sneakered, sweatpanted, ponytailed glory. The gym was packed with people, their invisible hopes stacked tall like poker chips. People were betting on themselves this year. 

With each person that walked into the gym lobby, I pictured thought bubbles popping up with promises above every head: 
2017 will be different. 
New year.
New you. 

The smell of willpower lingered in the air with the disinfectant used to clean the elliptical machines. Sports announcers recapped a football play on the television screen hanging in the corner. Basketballs bounced on the court while jeers and cheers from the players echoed in the linoleum-lined hallways. 

I inhaled, exhaled, and stepped on the track. My iPod ear buds pulsed with music as I tried to align my steps with the beat. I mean, I like running. I do. But some days I like it more than others. On this day, running was lower on the list of enjoyable things to do.

Just focus on the song, I thought. Get through the workout so you can put a check in the to-do box. 

As I ran, my movements were canned and repetitive. Robotic. My black patterned pants stretched, but they felt like metal. 
I was a Tin-Man. 
Clunky and clanging. 
Heavy-footed. 
Lacking heart. 
But hey. I was here. 

Suddenly, I felt someone brush past me. I turned my head. She was a mop of dark curls swept up in a high ponytail. Black leggings. A shirt that read “Girls Rule.” She pitter-pattered on the edge of the track, her little legs moving a mile a minute.

No taller than my knee caps, the girl continued around the track. Her mouth stretched from ear to ear as she ran, revealing a grin so wide and pure and downright adorable that I couldn’t help but feel my own lips stretch over my teeth. I continued clip-clopping around the circle, intrigued by the Little Runner that Could.

A blonde woman with a bob cut jogged ahead. She smiled a mother’s smile as the girl ran past her, looking back at the woman’s face with eyes that screamed, “Look at me!” I’m running!” The woman nodded and smiled in response. There was no sense of pressure or expectation from the mom. She wasn’t trying to turn her daughter into the next female Usain Bolt. She simply looked happy that her daughter looked happy.

I continued along, assuming the little girl would stop after a lap. But she kept running. And running. And running. Fast. 

I was in awe of this energizer bunny. I slowed my jog to a walk, mesmerized by the little girl’s abilities. 
Wait. 
No. 
It wasn’t her ability that mesmerized me. Her speed —though impressive—didn’t completely captivate me. It drew me in at first, sure. But I’ve seen a lot of fast on this track and in gymnasiums. I’ve seen talent. I’ve seen skill. I’ve seen competition and anxious and relief and willpower. 

But this little girl? This girl had happiness. And It was her genuine happy that felt unique. It was her joy that inspired my intrigue. You don’t see a ton of open-faced, unapologetic, old-fashioned, pure enjoyment these days. 

I mean, there’s glimpses and shades of happy mixed with other emotions or fears. Expectations by society, from parents, within ourselves, cloud and confuse us. They make us forget why we started what we started in the first place. 

But this girl in the black leggings and the dark hair and the big grin had 100% HAPPY splayed all over her face for the whole world to see while she ran around this track. It radiated off of her like water rising and returning to the clouds on a hot summer day. Watching this girl run, I wished for a mason jar so I could capture the excess joy beams flashing like fireflies behind her footsteps. 

The mom paused by the track entryway and said to her daughter whizzing past, “Honey, you can go around one more time, yes.” And so she did. 

“She just doesn’t quit!” I couldn’t help but remark to the mom as I walked by, exchanging eye contact and a smile.

“Right?!” The mom laughed, her eyes wide in that “I don’t get it either” way. “She just loves it so much.”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Four.” We both turned to look at her daughter, now halfway around the track. “She loves to come here. She’ll ask me, ‘Can we go running today?’ My husband said to me the other day, ‘Is this normal? I don’t think this is normal. I think she may be really fast’.” 

“Definitely,” I nodded. “She’s amazing. I want her energy.” 

“Thanks,” she smiled. I walked on. 

“God gave her a gift to run,” I told my husband later that night. “Like, she just kept going. For no reason. I swear we are going to hear about her winning the Olympics in 20 years.”

She’s a 4-year-old girl. She doesn’t run to lose weight or because the guilt monster is snarling from the inner corners of her conscience. She isn’t running to be the fastest or prove something to someone.
 
She runs because she likes it. End of story. 

I think about the activities that have brought me happiness in my life: Dance. Volleyball. Writing. I started each of them during different times in my life because I enjoyed them. And at one point or another, each of the activities have gotten tangled up in the wicked webs of fear and doubt and all of the other junk that simply serves as distraction from the fact that I started doing them because I liked it. I had to fight back against the web and go back to the beginning of why I started. I think we all have to do that a time or two. Or four. Or more.

When was the last time you did something you loved because you enjoyed it? Not for praise or prizes. Not for affirmation or inclusion. Not to meet expectations or calm fears. Just straight up love for whatever it is: Making music. Art. Movies. Hunting. Hockey. Baking. Running. 

Fear and competition can be healthy. But not when it erases the enjoyment from whatever you are doing. Do things because you love them, and try hard not to forget why you started in the first place.

Don't forget to take the happy with you.