Laughing amongst the stars

“You – you alone will have the stars as no one else has them…In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…You – only you – will have stars that can laugh.”

Isn’t that just really powerful and beautiful? Robin William’s daughter posted this quote from The Little Prince on social media shortly after the news of his death plagued the airwaves. I have suffered more losses in this life than I care to discuss. It’s a nice thought to think if you just keep looking up their there in the stars and maybe even laughing. I nearly lost my father this year to AML. If you are not a cancer officianado as I have come to be, AML is short for acute myeloid lukemia.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/adultAML/Patient/page1 – theres a link to more info if incase you find yourself homogenous to the curious cat

I think her recent public grieving for her father struck a cord with me more than anything else had about his passing having almost been in the same shoes this year.

It was all very sudden one minute he’s fine and the next doctors are telling us without treatment he has six weeks to live. Now my dad is no spring chicken at 65 years old but certainly we wanted more than 6 weeks. God 6 weeks would feel like 6 seconds when it was all said and done and that’s just not fair. So we had a sort of “last meal” at the casino (dad’s pick) before they admitted him to the hospital for what was meant to only be a month long treatment. In one day we found out the earthshattering news and started our tumble down the rabbit hole that is cancer and it didn’t stop for 6 long agonizing months. Those six months felt like six years. Chemo caused an infection which then became toxic and it spiraled from there. Then as you can imagine  4 months bedridden led to 2 months of physical therapy and rehab so that my father could once again learn to use his body. At one point during his 4 month stay which was mostly spent in ICU he was put in a medically induced coma for about a week and put on a ventilator. We thought this is it, he may not make it. It was gut wrenching, terrifying, heartbreaking, the kind of thing that makes you so angry you feel like you just might spontaneously combust. I spent hours wondering what if… Counting all the moments my father would potentially miss with me and his grandchidren, with all of us. Everytime something went wrong I had the urge to call my father because he always seemed to have the answers but for the first time in my whole life I couldn’t ask my dad for help, and it broke me down in every possible way. The bond between a father and a daughter is a special one. I can’t quite describe it. The relief we felt when he went into remission was like nothing I’ve ever felt, for the first time in months the tears I cried were tears of joy. When he was taken off of dialysis ( his kidneys had begun to fail due to the chemo) I did another little happy dance and my heart soared. Now I savor every moment, every phone call, every last look from my father. I will never again take for granted my father or my family. Coming so close to the end gives me a glimpse of what the reality of such a loss would be. I don’t think thats a loss you ever recover from fully. Going through this experience with my father we joked about being cancer experts and practically becoming nurses with the motto this is the new normal it’s just life and we’ll get through it. I think if we had lost him we’d have never recovered but we would have eventually adjusted to “the new normal.” For all those suffering from the loss of a loved one I hope that they are laughing amongst the stars, and I pray you find your way to your “new normal” with courage, and hope.

Peace, Love, and Pizza 😉

xo