Easy to forget...too easy to remember

Today I sat down with Annah to do her nails. She wanted both her fingernails and her toenails painted, and being the fun mom that I am, I accomodated her. I removed old polish, cleaned them good, buffed them out, and finally repainted them all (in two different colors mind you!). Then I did my own fingernails (my toenails are still beautiful from my pedicure almost 2 weeks ago). Things were very normal.

And then I remembered. I have cancer. It's easy to forget though. Things are still pretty normal around here, except for the little alarm that goes off on my phone every four hours to remind me to take some kind of medication. Or when I glance in the mirror and see my short hair. Or when we have prayer, and the kids pray for mommy to feel better. Or when I'm just so tired that I have to stop what I'm doing to take a nap. Okay, so maybe not completely normal, but still mostly normal.

Oh, my hair. I went today and had it cut short. Really short. I figure that if I'm going to lose my hair to chemo, then I'm going to do some of it on my terms. It's going to fall out, so why not go ahead and get the short "do" and enjoy it a little. Besides, it should help get the kids kind of used to things, or at least used to the changes. Poor Annah fell apart when she saw me. Jacob wouldn't come to me. And Jonathan just said it was ugly. I try not to take any of it personally.

Anyway, it's easy to forget things when we're having those normal moments. But then it's too easy to remember when I see myself in the mirror, or when I have pain, or even when we talk about getting a babysitter so I can go to my treatments. It's always there, lurking in the background. I remember feeling that way after we lost Andrew....there would be very normal moments, and then suddenly I'd realize I felt happy when I was supposed to be feeling sad. It took a long time to get over that, and I don't figure I'll be getting past this for quite a while. But it's okay to feel happy, even when underneath the sadness and the fear are there. Because if I stop feeling happy during those normal moments, then the cancer wins. And that's just not going to happen.