When I was 14, a freshman in high school, my Grandpa passed away at a younger age from lung issues. It was 8 days after my birthday. My mom, my sister, and I flew down to Palm Springs where they were living at the time and he passed away peacefully in the hospital. It was my first experience with death and my first time seeing a dead body. He was at peace and I vividly remember kissing his cold, prickly face as I had done so many times as a younger child. He was the only father figure I had known. He was the only man to show me how a man should treat a woman (from what I saw, he treated my Grandma like a queen but they were also a partnership,) he was the only man at that time who showed me love that didn’t require something in return. He was a good man. A class act as well. I know he probably had his faults but in my young eyes he didn’t have any.

After he passed and life returned to normal, things got bad in the household of me, my mom, and my sister. My mom’s father passed away and tossed her life upside down. Looking back, I think she was looking for solace to heal that part she lost. But she would have to answer that question herself. During all that, she found a man she fell in love with. She was gone often, weekends and nights. We have hashed all the hurt this and the following events to come so this is not a blame session against my mom. It’s merely back story to explain some other conversations I am having now.

My mom was still seeing the same man, one she would later marry and then divorce. During their dating times, she was gone a lot and I needed my mom. The only man I had known to be good was gone and I didn’t know how to process it. I acted out, took too many pills one night and rode the ambulance to the emergency room. I fought with my mom and my sister out of desperation for someone to comfort me. My mom didn’t know what to do with me, and I was the “good one” of the two of her children. So she called her sister and brother in law, who I had visited other summers and grown to love. She asked if I could go live with them for a while. They were in Medford, Oregon at the time and that became my home for a while. I had felt like I had been shipped off.

My uncle was a pastor at a church there and we attended regularly as a child of a pastor is required to. I found some lifelong friends and learned a lot about God. I didn’t know it then but some of those lessons I still apply to my life.

I hadn’t spoken to my Uncle in a long time, years and years. He and my aunt divorced a long time ago and we lost touch. I might add here, that he was the second man in my life that I looked up to. He cared about me and treated me like I was his kid when I lived with them. He grounded me when he found out I skipped school, he made sure I did my schoolwork, all the things a pseudo father should do. They had two daughters at the time that I absolutely adored. I lived with them for two years and then went back to my mom’s house. It was two years that definitely helped shape the person I am today.

I don’t know how but my uncle found out about our go fund me and reached out to my mom. She gave him my number.

We have reconnected and I can only thank God for it. God knew right at this point in my life, I needed some guidance. My uncle is retired now but is still someone I trust to ask questions regarding God and the Bible. I have so many more questions now that I have had the diagnosis of cancer.

I told him via a text conversation that I often struggle with the Why Me question. As I have mentioned before and will continue to, I don’t wish this on anyone but why me? My uncle responded with exactly how I have been feeling. God feels the pain I am going through and wants it to bring me closer to him. I have never blamed God for the cancer, I blame that on humanity. This cancer diagnosis has brought me and my family closer to God.

I didn’t use to pray regularly, I lost faith in the church but saw a post the other day that if you lost faith in the church because of a person, you didn’t have faith in God it was in people. And that has resonated with me a lot. Cancer will also make you question a lot of things you believed and didn’t believe. It changes a person that you can’t completely understand unless you have lived it.

I pray pretty much daily now. Not just for healing for myself but for guidance with my family and if I am navigating all of this right for them. Am I eliminating as much pain for them and am I keeping all their lives as regular as it can be while I undergo chemo?

David and I have had so many conversations about the Bible and God in our life. I’ve had a few conversations with my mom and also Zanna and I had conversations about religion and where it fits in all our lives. Bringing us all closer together and to God.

I had a lesson the other day with the twins about Noah, the ark, and the Tower of Babel. It posed some questions that I talked about with David and Evan. The three of us have very logical minds and some things in the bible confuse us. I told my Uncle I wished we lived closer so I could pick his brain so to speak with some of my questions.

But for now, I am going to find an easier bible to read and look for some answers myself and with my prayers. I know some of my prayers are being answered daily. And I am grateful for that.