Mom News

Great News! My Mom went for her regular MRI yesterday. Findings showed the tumor is still static. No growth. So her Oncologist gave her the green light to take a hiatus from chemotherapy for three months! Three months!

Come December they will re-image and re-evaluate.

This is a much-welcomed break. We’re thrilled she is doing so well. I took this picture today. Doesn’t she look great?

Ten years ago I wrote this poem for my Mom. It was late Summer. Just a few years after her first battle with brain cancer. She found it some time before I had the boys and we read it together. Again.

The words seem appropriate today with tomatoes coming off the vine, heavy and abundant. The harvest world on fire.

Thanks for teaching us to believe Mom. Still rooting for you! We love you!

She is a backyard gardener

of crowded tomatoes

and fire orange lilies.

She imbibes peace

by cultivating a leafy place

of earth she calls home.

Years ago,

I looked over a holy city

and worried for her life.

She said

So I listened

for the calling of her name,

the release of her breath.

But she dug another furrow

that reddened with fire and tomatoes.

Miracle years pass

and my angel mother

with corn-silk hair

continues to work the ground,

remembering Jairus and his daughter.

Her own seeds grow and blossom.

Winds carry them to new soil

where she watches them

fight the wayward weeds with

infant faith and sputtering light.

She wants to shout

as they move through the layered soil,

untangling, freeing them as they go.

But she quiets her mouth,

gloves her hands and

bends upon the earth.

With a precious faith

burned into her heart,

she kneels. Stays.

Long enough to feel

the sun at her back.