Daniel is just a week away from turning 5. Last week, I registered him for Kindergarten. Saturday marked the 2 year anniversary of his last chemo treatment. His March scans were NED and we have graduated from scans every 3 months to every 6 months—only twice a year.

So many milestones at one time for such a little boy! Like soft waves rolling towards the shore where he stands--- one wonderful milestone after another washing towards him—his pants rolled up, his feet bare in the surf.

I was driving to the dentist this morning on Route 9—the road that also leads to Children’s/Jimmy Fund— and memories like ghosts rose up and sat beside me--- took my heart away. I breathed it back into my body. Terrifying memories. How does a mother live with such memories? How does she allow them their existence, without breaking her to pieces?

Here we are, able to take health for granted now--- though reminding ourselves not to--- such a luxury. We were a family shaped by cancer and illness, but who are we now? What are our priorities when we are no longer just getting through the day, or doing what we’re told to keep Daniel alive, focusing our energy on Olivia’s health, eventually making space for our own healing?

We are defining who we are now—making our own choices—becoming. We are a family touched, damaged by cancer, and cancer is part of who we are—at the center of who we are, like the darkest part of a candle flame. But maybe we take something from that-– we have been cut to the core, but burning there, we find a lesson telling us: don’t lose sight of what you have could have lost. A truth there--- about life, about the value in every moment, about love-- expanding and contracting like breath, and glowing.

A few weeks ago, the kids and I tagged along with Steve on a business trip to Monterey, California (see photos) and had a wonderful time. We saw rainbows over the Pacific almost everyday. It was amazing and beautiful to watch them glow.

One day when it started raining, Daniel, Olivia and I ducked into a store on Cannery Row, and when the sky cleared we exited out the back door and onto the beach. A rainbow arced through the clouds, glowing pure and vibrant, like liquid light falling from the sky to the sea. Daniel ran out ahead to where the sand met the rocks and sea, the rainbow above him, opened his arms and said, “This whole place is beautiful!”

He is my wide-angle lens--- he takes in the big picture and sees the beauty of the sea and sky, “I want to chase the horizon,” he tells me, “how long will it take me to catch it?” and in so many pictures, his eyes are cast up. Olivia finds beauty in the tiniest creatures, fragments of shell and sand and petals fallen from flowers—she is my close up lens. And through them both, through their eyes, I see all the beauty the world is offering. Such a gift.

We saw so many rainbows in Monterey— I am reminded that in the book of Genesis after the flood, the rainbow appears as the sign of the covenant between God and all life on Earth—God’s promise that He would never again destroy all life on earth-- there will be no more floods. For me, the Monterey rainbows were not a promise, but they were a sign-- that we’re at the beginning of something, and while we can’t leave cancer entirely behind, we are moving forward. The ground will hold and there is a path for us to travel. And looking ahead I see it is lined with wild flowers Olivia will love, and way in the distance a horizon, wide and blue and bright, for Daniel to spend a lifetime chasing.