May 12th – Worst
Day/Best Day
It’s so
interesting how a day can be so meaningful in so many ways. I am a numbers person – I love math, I always
love the way numbers fit together and seem to have significance, when I can’t
sleep at night I count backwards from 1000 by 7 and that puts me to sleep and
my favorite number has been 4 since I turned 4 – it’s just my thing. I guess that partly explains why I pay
attention to significant dates – birthdays, anniversaries, my first date with
Peter, things like that – in fact sometimes it’s weird what I remember but
that’s just how my mind works.
And May 12th
has become one of those dates. The “worst”
day! Three years ago today, May 12, 2010, we were told that Jacqui had synovial sarcoma – it was the day that
forever changed our lives, ripped the rose coloured glasses right off our faces
and set us on a journey that we never
imagined or wanted to take.
The days
since then have been by turns horrifying, amazing, boring, exciting,
challenging, scary, fun, crazy, sad, happy, tiring everything – kind of normal
for a life but there have been some very intense highs and lows, but thankfully
a few more “normal” days here and there as well. It’s interesting to reflect on what has taken
place – but the biggest thing that stands out to me is that it’s been 3 years –
3 more years with Jacqui (with many, many more expected and hoped for). Every day with all those we love is a gift,
but as I’ve said before, I feel like my senses are heightened even more because
of what’s gone on.
So that
brings me to this May 12, same date, but it’s Mother’s Day this time. Last year we were at Carroll University in
Waukesha, WI celebrating Tyler’s university graduation – that’s a good mother’s
day gift! But this year we were back to
our usual Mother’s Day celebrating – the Forzani Mother’s Day run – I can’t
even remember how many years we’ve done it, but it must be around 10 or so and
it’s the second one Jacqui has done since her amputation. Can you even imagine how proud and humbled I
felt running behind her as she ran this race with 17,000 or so people –watching
her dart in and out as she passed the slow people in front of her!!!! At the
end - as it happened - there weren’t many people around us so we crossed the
finish line all together and as we did, the announcers called our names and
said “Here come the Warner’s – watch out for those crazy Warner’s” – That made
this a “best” day.
This is
also my first mother’s day without my mom – and how I wish I could talk to her
today. When Jacqui was first diagnosed I
was so thankful that she was so far into her dementia that she didn’t understand
what Jacqui had to go through. But now I
think I would have loved to be able to talk to her about all that she had
suffered and gone through when my sister Gloria was ill and then how it was for
her to lose her daughter (not that I’m planning on losing Jacqui anytime soon). When things weren’t going well, one of my mom’s
favorite comments was “That’s how it is in this old world” and it used to drive
us crazy, it seemed so fatalistic - and she didn’t share a lot of what that
meant to her – or maybe she tried to tell us but we just weren’t ready to hear
it - I think now I might know what questions to ask to unlock her heart and I’m
sorry I missed that.
So May 12th
is my worst, best, proudest, most nostalgic, run of the mill day of the year –
actually kind of like any day of the year can be when you really look at it!
