February is a month of Valentines and snow squalls and sudden thaws. The seasonal changes bare what's underneath, then cover them up again. The landscape of New England is sometimes stark: white snow striped by long blue shadows, and sometimes ugly: mud and dirt churned and flung about. A fitting month for the ugly truths of grief and loss. 

Past postings have often been euphemistic and symbolic. We talked in metaphors about winter trees and spring blossoms. Long sleeps and awakening life. Poetry. Symbols. Comparisons that create distance between our personal lives and what has happened within them. We used language that created space. Safety. Maybe clarity and boundaries.

It's a compulsion, trying to make meaning out of circumstances over which we had no control. Trying to create purpose out of the aftermath. To learn lessons. To find hope. To create a legacy. To impose order. 

We'd like to make Jessie's cancer and subsequent death, and all the experiences we endured along the way, and all the ones that have occurred since that time, into a spare and rhythmic song or story. Something you can hold onto. Read. Digest. Smile over. Sigh over. Carry away inspiration from. Remember. 

A tale you can continue thinking about...because somehow it has been made beautiful, or palatable, or significant. As a line of verse. A rhyme. An image. A painting. A photo. 

And yes, all of those elements are true. In some ways, we aren't able to remember the entirety of an experience. It's too much, when it's in close-up focus with every gritty painful not-so-pretty detail. We remember in broad strokes and condensed summaries.  

After all, human beings can carry the conceptual memory of pain, but we cannot continue feeling it as we recall it, or we'd never dare to touch or move again. We forget the actual experience of pain, though we learn lessons from it. We distill sensory experiences into something that is contained in words and images, but cannot once more be physically recalled. Once over, it is gone, though it has blazed pathways through our neural connections and our emotional topography, and left its mark.

Except pain's not gone. And you cannot stuff the entirety of all that's happened to our family, and every other family challenged in such ways, into paragraphs about blank snowfalls and midnight stars and new moons and cold frosts and first thaws. 

Sometimes we need raw language. Shocking words. Expletives. Curses and swears. Sometimes we need visceral, emotional explosions. Confrontations. Denials. Shouts. Primal screams. Angry tears and swollen red eyes and hiccupping, raspy voices and clenched fists and restless, stomping feet. 

We need to be real. Unedited. Uncensored. Not so pretty. Broken. Damaged. Wounded. Uncertain if we'll make it. Unable to make promises or take vows. Doing our best, but not always being in very good shape along the way.

This month, let us be frank. The journey isn't over. We all continue. But the aftermath of long years with cancer continues to impact our family, challenging us in unexpected ways, and continuing to take a toll. 

On paper, we look pretty good. Sarah has great grades, she's an honors student who is busy with enriching and challenging extracurriculars in dance, song, band and track plus community service through organizations such as Rotary Interact. Chris is a partner in an architectural firm that's stable despite the economy, and active as a civic leader by his participation in Rotary and church and other initiatives such as raising funds for cancer research through bike rides like the PMC. Gail continues running a non-profit foundation that helps other cancer families and has resumed steady freelance work as a writer. 

Does that sound good? Sure. 

What isn't so obvious, when you greet us in the coffee shop or catch us on the street or run into us at the library or chitchat after church is that we're just getting by. Going through the motions. Trying to do what we should, or what's necessary or expected. 

We have habits that sometimes take the place of intimacy. Sometimes we sit down to a meal together. Or go on a family outing. Or have a conversation that's not just about schedules or social stuff. It's a struggle. Sometimes. Sometimes we don't even achieve these routines.

Each member of this family is lost and confused and compromised. Although we're each desperate for connection, we are isolated from each other and often unable to be present in the ways that make a difference. We are very broken. 

We don't know if we'll heal...not in the way we once believed we would. We'll keep functioning. We'll graduate and work and participate in the community. We'll try to be a family, although that's not a certainty anymore. 

We'll keep going. But we're not the same. We're changed. And wounded beyond belief. You cannot see the hurt. You cannot fix it. But the cancer and the journey through it continues to claim lives in different ways. 

We'll always try to find meaning and purpose. Why bother living if you don't? It's our nature to do so. But for once, despite all the opportunities to turn words into something startlingly beautiful or visually compelling, we won't. We have created those illusions too often, and even believed in them, when underneath was a hurt and a loss that was costing us ourselves and our family and our connections to our friends and community. 

So we offer you the aching bare language of bewilderment, confusion, anger, betrayal, sorrow, despair, exhaustion, grief and many other destructive emotions. They're part of this journey. They're real. They do damage. They're always part of it, and the less numb we become, the more we ask of ourselves as we try to reclaim life, and the more these feelings emerge and the more hurt it seems we truly are. 

Dark feelings, and we don't know what to do with them. We work with counselors and healers. We try. We don't let go easily, but we also are starting to see just how much damage has occurred...and we don't yet realize the enormity of the challenge to try to recover. It's overwhelming. Exhausting. 

What comes next? Can we be healed? Is it possible? And what would healing look like for each of us? We don't know. Right now, there's no other answer. We don't know. There's no roadmap or guidebook. Just us, trying to find a path.

The journey continues. 

Over the New Year, someone hoped, out loud, that this decade would be a better one. This decade? For the past several years, as we kept a journal about family life, at year's end we reflected on the changes wrought by twelve months. We looked back at what occurred in one year, and then looked ahead at the challenges and opportunities of another one. A decade, though?

Usually we finished up the year with a sense of hope and renewal, despite whatever each year had contained...we wanted the New Year. The blank slate. The white winter canvas of new-fallen snow and another chance. 

2005: We reflected that "...the next twelve months will present obstacles and challenges for all of us, as individuals, families, communities, nations and a world. May it also bring healing, cures, remissions, dignity in passages between life and death, discoveries, adventures, miracles and blessings, growth, forgiveness, peace, commitment, renewal, strength, patience, humor, understanding, and love....Once more, snow falls at the end of the day, changing precipitation into something white and gentle. It 'sticks,' covering the flaws and faults in the world, layering it in potential. Our footsteps at midnight are the first imprints of the new year, coming and going..."

2006: We considered that "...if we appreciate any... lessons...it's living with a sort of fearlessness...Perhaps we'll never be as "innocent" as we were back then. ... But we hope. And we make choices with a two-fold awareness: we must savor life now, because we're never certain of what tomorrow might bring, but we must also live as if we'll all grow old with each other."

2007: We spoke out of loss, and dared to believe. "Empty? We choose not to be empty...that cannot be the legacy of a life lived together as a family, with Jessie among us...Because we have each other. And we have you. And love endures beyond the span of a human life. The year ahead ...isn't empty at all. It is just...potentiality. A promise itself. A time, a space, a heart, a mind, a life, a relationship, a community, a world just waiting...waiting to be filled."

2008: We started our thoughts by saying, "Yes, it's a time of uncertainty. Disbelief. Sorrow. Perhaps even stark fear or blazing anger. ...Yet it's a season of tremulous hope. Strength. Courage. Conviction and commitment...there's this other part. The part you can grab onto sometimes...in the moment your red sled plummets down a packed snow path...and lifts into the snapping blue-white air. ...peals of laughter and joy. ...when the darkest, coldest times set in. ...Just know, they're inside...Small burning gifts: little suns. Part of our wintertime possibility and power."

2009 is beyond words. We haven't been able to find a way to speak of it. Sure, we can be optimists and can make lists of accomplishments. Then again, we can add up small hurts and huge gaping holes. This past year? Measured against the impact of each person who has come and gone, intersecting with us, it is complex and ever-expanding. Weighed in a spectrum of highs and lows, it has been a long, tough and sobering twelve months...we are challenged. We aren't at our best...really, we're just trying to be present in a meaningful way. Or maybe just to be here, period. Often that's a stretch. It has been one of the toughest years in our married lives, in our personal lifetimes, or as parents or children...Maybe even as a nation. We hurt more, not less. And hopefulness seems further away...a promise that isn't always attainable. We are hollowed out. Or chock-full of too many unnamed feelings and thoughts. So tired. Trying hard to hang on and find our way. But we simply don't make promises to each other, because we're not sure what comes next, or if we can keep them. 

Measuring in decades: Challenged to look toward a new decade, though? We haven't thought that far backward or forward in a long time. 

But measuring life by a decade? When asked about it, friends were quite struck by where they'd been on their life journey ten years ago...and how much circumstances have changed. For some of them, it has been a good decade. For others, rough but manageable. For some...us included...the outcome has been almost unspeakable.

Across 10 years, so much happens. People became spouses, parents, grandparents, or were unexpectedly solo again. Young people graduated and entered new phases of their lives...college or early careers. Families were conceived, adopted, born or grown up. Partnerships were created, and other marriages or families were sundered...perhaps forever. We went to war. We moved into our own places, bought homes, or lost them. Some folks started and closed businesses. Or changed careers. We were scared by diagnoses, celebrated healing, or wept when we knew that there was nothing left to do. We overcame problems, and other times found ourselves in the middle of them...perhaps due to accidents, disease, violence, addictions, or economics. Dreams grew and changed, faded or came into being. Great loves lived and died. 

And as we reflect on the past decade, consider where we are now. Some of what's true about our lives was planned. Some of it was unimaginable, beyond our control. Some of it came as a shock and a grief, and some of it came as unexpected joy or happiness. Overall...this is perhaps the hardest decade of our personal and family lives, and has certainly been a tough one for our nation and world.

Yes, we hope the next decade is kinder. Better. But we know now...we cannot guess what's coming. We may have plans. Ambitions. Goals. Timelines. Passions. Loves. Dreams. And many of those will influence what happens. But other forces will also shape our lives. 

We also know that not everyone we love will be with us at the end of the next decade. Already we have lost beloved ones during our journey. (Or perhaps it's best to say...our loved ones have moved beyond our current reach...they aren't lost.) And perhaps we, ourselves, will not be here...on this mortal earth, within those 10 years. We cannot know.

Then again, sometimes what matters is how we respond to what comes, whether we anticipate it, or it comes as a surprise. After all, we cannot claim the good parts of the past decade, without also finding space for the tough stuff, too. And who...who would choose to unpluck the weave of such gifts as Jessie's life in our family...or Sarah's growing up into a young woman...or all of the unique memories shared among family and friends...from the threads of pain, anger and loss that are also part of its enduring fabric? You'd have to unravel the whole cloth...and we cannot do so. It's impossible. 

Ten years from now...some aspects of our family lives will be comforting, and some parts of its shape will be a surprise. 

A decade. Yes, it's a different way to think about our legacy.

Suddenly: Most of us, it seems, are consumed with getting through a workday or a school day, and getting everything done before we go to bed or wake up tomorrow morning. Maybe some of us anticipate the next holiday or vacation, or the finish of a big project, or a personal milestone such as a birthday or anniversary...something else significant marked on the calendar. Some of us live hour-by-hour, as the news in our lives changes and we catch our breath, trying to grasp what's happening.

Then suddenly...we are reminded, by a series of events, just how quickly a few moments can change your life forever. And how immediate life becomes in crisis. All over again, just when you thought nothing else could happen. The earthquake in Haiti, of course. Or one family's nightmare as their son relapses with cancer. Another family's struggle as their child is newly diagnosed with leukemia. A parent's sudden, inexplicable passage. Ironically, crisis can also unfurl slowly...dragging on over weeks and months. Cancer, natural disasters, economic losses and other crises are taking a toll on too many families. The totals, though not as sudden and magnified as those from an earthquake, are each catastrophic within their setting.  Crises...some sudden, some slow...alter the shape of an individual and a family forever. 

We can try to think about decades. But sometimes we're reduced to counting every breath and heartbeat. Because it doesn't seem like there's anything more certain than the next inhalation.

What next? Over the winter holidays, as one family lit candles in the darkness, they shared a quote that we find oddly comforting. It has stuck with us...echoing...rolling around...like a small smooth stone that can be rolled in the palm, between thumb and restless fingertips, whenever it is needed. Like a 'worry stone.' Perhaps it will resonate for you...perhaps not: "Fear not tomorrow, for God is already there."

Is that comforting? To believe that someone has gone ahead of you, and is already waiting? Maybe you believe it's the Creator. Or maybe you believe it's your loved ones, who have passed into a place you cannot yet follow. Just the idea that someone's ahead of you, and knows what you will find when you get there? It doesn't change what happens next. But we tuck the thought into our pockets, and keep going. 

Inhaling, we look backward. At a day. A year. A decade. Close our eyes. 

Hold our breath. Imagine. Can we make it through another 10 years? Or even 24 hours? One way or another...yes. Because they add up one step and one moment at a time. So we'll start with those tiny increments and keep going. We'll go on for as long as we're given. And along the way, let's just do our best...whatever our best might be at the time.

Exhaling, we open our eyes again. And dare to look. Then ready or not, it's time for the next step. 

The journey continues.