Worst Day/Best Day

May 12^th – 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 12^th 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 12^th 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!