Has it really been 56 days since the last journal post?  Impossible.  I suppose this is a reflection of our blissfully uneventful summer, as a friend recently remarked.  

Camp Wapsie was the highlight, as is typical.  Note the stern, disciplined stance of Owen outside his ranger tent.  In contrast to the delightful smile on Phinn, still toting around an Avengers blanket.  

The boys had vastly different approaches to summer this year.  Owen spent his days training, running, and lifting with the cross country team.  Phinn spent his days... growing?  Sleeping for 12 hours and napping the afternoons away.  

August has since arrived and we've been busy preparing for all things related to high school.  Of course I can't help but consider what our world looked like a year ago.  Broken record or not, it warrants unapologetic reflection.  

August 19, 2022 Owen was discharged from the hospital, completing his final round of chemotherapy.  He weighed 99 pounds, struggled to walk up a flight of stairs, and had little to no control over his feet and hands.  So how on earth is this kid now running 5K's at a 7-minute mile pace? 

I honestly don't know.  I just know that we're here, and it's happening.  

For those of you who are local, City High will host the Bud Williams Invitational on September 28th at the U of I Ashton Cross Country Course.  It's a phenomenal thing to witness these young bodies gut it out, collapsing at the finish line.  Last year the coaches awarded Owen the Bud Williams plaque for Intestinal Fortitude.  How beautiful and fitting it will be to watch him compete, coming full circle.  

I've found the more distance we get from these traumatic, life-altering events, the more perspective we acquire.  Hopefully we become more gracious.  More empathetic. More appreciative.  Grief and loss still present, but maybe not taking up as much space as they once did.

Books of course help me develop a language for expressing these emotions, and I've got a must-read.  It. Goes. So. Fast.  by Mary Louise Kelly.  She's a national security reporter for NPR and co-host of All Things Considered.  My goodness does it resonate, particularly if you're a mother of boys who are about to embark on their own life path.  

Keep September 20th in your thoughts, as that is when his next MRI is scheduled.  Always a week filled with anxiety.  

In a rare role reversal, Owen will be pushing me through the hospital in a wheelchair on the 20th, as I'll be fresh off a surgery.  I could easily ask my dad to help out, but Owen said he'd rather do it himself.  I immediately thought of Kelly's book... 'My boy is becoming a man; my child is becoming an adult, an empathetic human beginning to shoulder the weight of caring for others.'  

Oh sweetie, so naive.  

T:  Okay, I appreciate that Owen!  But grandpa can totally help out at the hospital. 

O:  Mom, it's not a big deal.  I'd rather push you myself so I can finally walk at the speed I want.  You're always so slow.  

😒