We were engaged for about 6 months and were married in March 2002.  Our wedding was done on a budget, but as excited as we were to get married we just saw the wedding as a day.  It was an important and beautiful day, but we wanted to start our life together.  Our wedding was mainly put together by our families in Detroit.  We would give input on what we felt was important to us, but let our families make a lot of decisions.  Our desire was to have everything be simple, that everything represented who we are as a couple and we wanted everyone to be comfortable.  Maybe my love goggles were on that day, but I thought our wedding did all of those things.  It felt like it was over before it had started, but it was so special.

We left the church, headed to 7-11 for slurpees, stayed one night in a local hotel and then headed “up north” to a friends cabin for a few days.  The honeymoon had begun!  When we got to the cabin there were signs and decorations everywhere.  My parents had come up the week before and put up pictures of my dad and a random intimidating looking man.  There was a giant one over the bed that said, “Kevin we are watching you.”  That was my dad’s sense of humor.  It was creepy, but it was so special.  They also left gift cards for restaurants and Blockbuster.  It was still snowy up there, so we ended up renting movies, pushing the couches together and relaxing.

We headed back to my parent’s house to open some wedding presents and say goodbye.  We were on our way back to Nashville.  Kevin had moved down in January and was living in our apartment.  We got back and started life.  Going to work, volunteering at our church, playing a lot of video games (we had so much free time), bowling on Sunday afternoons and date nights at Costco.  Church was helping us connect with people, but for the most part it was just us.  It was hard to be so far family, but I also believe it was the best thing for us.  It forced us to focus on each other and building a strong relationship.  There was so much to figure out and learn about each other.

We had almost two months of a honeymoon phase and then we faced our first hardship in our marriage.  Kevin’s sister and boyfriend were coming to visit us for the long Memorial Day weekend.  We were so excited to have family coming.  I was at work waiting for them to tell us they were in town when I got a call from my mom.  She had not been feeling well and had been going doctors to figure out what was going on.  It turns out she had stage four bladder cancer.  I was in shock and just like when 9/11 had happened I felt so far from home, but this time I was not alone.  I called Kevin.  We made the decision to fly home that weekend and be with my family.  My mom as in the hospital and we weren’t sure of what was going to happen.  So I met my sister-in-law at our apartment to tell her we were flying to Detroit.  I felt terrible, but they were so gracious and completely understood.

We spent the weekend in Detroit.  My brother and his fiancee came in from Chicago.  My youngest brother was at a local college so he was already in town.  It was so good to be together and figure out what was happening.  There was a constant stream of people at the hospital praying for my mom.  The doctor ultimately recommended her to go for treatment at UofM hospital.  Kevin and I left that weekend unsure of what was going to happen next.  My mom begged us to stay in Nashville.  She knew me and she knew that I would immediately want to move home.  She was right.  I did want to move home.  I wanted to be with her.  I wanted to help the woman that had helped me all of my life without complaint and with so much grace.  She knew, however, that Kevin and I needed to be together.  We had only been married a couple of months and were now facing this huge life thing.  My mom was so wise.

Going through the cancer journey with my mom forced us to grow up and grow together quickly.  We didn’t have time for petty arguments about toilet paper and toothpaste.  We were facing a crisis and we had to decide how our family of two was going to walk through adversity.  It was tough, but we did it.  Kevin was so gracious about how many times I wanted to fly back to Detroit.  It was a strain on our budget, but it was worth it to be with her.

My mom faced cancer like she did all things in life.  She was kind, gracious and brave.  I loved hearing her stories of who had come to visit or how dad had embarrassed her at the hospital.  Early on in her cancer diagnosis she said to me, “I don’t want cancer, but I wish everyone could experience Jesus the way I am right now.”  I thought it was kind of a weird statement, but it was a testament of her faith.  Her cancer drew her closer to Jesus.  It could have been the thing that broke her faith and instead it made it stronger.  Her life was not her own.  Her life was God’s to use.  She had so much peace and even when she was hurting it was magical to be around her.  Her peace was infectious just like her laughter.

It was so hard to leave her every time I had to go back to Nashville.  We eventually did move back home.  My dad kind of went to a crazy place after my mom’s diagnosis.  He was a great support to her, but he is also a doer.  He needed to do things for people to show them how much he loved them and he went into doer mode.  He kept a journal with him that kept record of all the people he asked for prayer for my mom.  Page after page of names.  Which meant he was constantly talking to people about my mom and asking for prayer.  Costco, the bank, church . . . anywhere.  He asked their care group to build a deck on the back of the house because that is what my mom had always wanted.  They did and wonderfully patient men would come labor for free while my dad supervised and helped as he could.  One day, however, he fell through the deck.  No one as home, except my mom.  Her chemo riddled body couldn’t lift my dad, so she just sat there and prayed until he could get himself up.  He had dislocated his shoulder.

In the fall of 2002 my position had been eliminated at the company I was working for and I had started a job at a deli. (Oh man, maybe Jason’s Deli needs its own post.  It was such a nice place to work and the food was so amazing!)  Anyway, winter was coming and Kevin and I felt that my parents could use some live in help.  My mom was having a major surgery and my dad’s shoulder was not 100% healed.  We made the decision to move home eight months after we were married.  It was not ideal, but we were so thankful we could be there to help.  Kevin’s patience and our unconventional honeymoon period prepared us to walk into this phase unified in who we were as a couple and how we were going to face challenges together.

Like my mom, I didn’t want her to have cancer either, but watching her and walking through cancer with her made me stronger as a person and it strengthened my marriage.  We get to choose, everyday, who we are going to be.  We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we are going to respond.  My mom chose to be a person who let adversity make her stronger and as a result the people around her had a model of how to live their life with faith and bravery.