One thought on “I could have written this myself. Deeper then just the title of the article. #AverysFight”

  1. Cynthia says:
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    Oh how I understand……I deeply understand. It is the moment that others went on with their lives ……and mine? It still stood still. I was still deep in the trenches of keeping my child alive of hoping the diagnoses was wrong, of waking each morning realizing that this was our fight, and no one else’s. ….and I understood that my church family had moved on. On to supporting the 3 year old who had broke her leg. And I sat alone while others scurried around the other mother and child. I thought, her child will heal. Mine won’t. Her child will grow old. Mine won’t. And as I sat there, I realized for the first time how fickle support really is. They had moved on to the next “tragedy.” We were old news.

    A week later another mother came along side me and handed me a note. An older mother, a grandmother. She stood unsure of how to say what it was that she wished to say. I waited. Florence had never said anything to me before. No notes, no cards, no phone calls, no words at all. But at this moment she looked deep in my eyes and didn’t flinch. Slowly she spoke, “I know where you now stand. I know what you are feeling….and I have waited. I waited to speak to you until the masses left you as I knew they would. They always do.” She continued to stare into my eyes as she slowly continued, “Now its my turn….but I won’t leave.” And she didn’t. She had walked a similar path as a younger woman and she understood.

    Let me say that with distance it is difficult to support you. But let me also say, that rarely a day goes by that I don’t think of your family, and pray for them. And I make a promise to you to continue to support your family in this way, and in whatever way you might ask for (and please do ask) But I also know that there will be “Florence’s” in your life. Perhaps not right now, but they will come. They might come in unexpected packages! Florence was not what I would have expected, having never talked to me, being an older, grandma. But Florence was exactly what I needed. She gave me hope that I was not alone. And in her own way she gave me hope to dream of something more than the diagnoses, and the prognosis. I have kept the note that Florence handed me that day. The note itself wasn’t what mattered, but it reminds me that even in the darkest day, when I am deeply alone with no end in sight, that THEN there will be Florence’s……..

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