Five Hundred, Twenty-Five Thousand, Six Hundred Minutes

Well, it's been a year ... almost.

One of my doctors told me to watch out for the one year mark. He said that he has seen countless patients who are coping wonderfully just be broken by that first anniversary. Yesterday, I found out what he meant.

We are hosting a memorial service at work this week. It is for an alum who died of cancer. She graduated four years before I did. When I was little, I used to play in her house. She has two children, a son and a daughter. She had breast cancer, got better, and then got sick again as the cancer spread to her brain.

I am in charge of the event. I have been talking to caterers, liturgists, and valet parkers trying to make tomorrow night's service beautiful for the family.

My anniversary is on Thursday.

I expected that this might be difficult, but I did not expect to to fall apart in the middle of Hallmark, yesterday. I guess that I should have asked someone else to go buy the guestbook for the woman who died of cancer. I also did not expect to have a hyperventilating, gasping for breath, face tingling, weak limbs breakdown after I left the store. I'm having a tough week.

I keep having flashbacks to the phone call I took while collapsed on my office floor. I remember throwing pens over my cubicle wall to get Gina's attention as my doctor's voice on the other end of the line became blurry and incomprehensible. I remember Renee coming over with wine and a bottle of margaritas, because she was unsure what to give to a friend who was just diagnosed with cancer. I remember drinking most of that bottle on my own ... and it still not being enough alcohol to lull me to sleep. I remember that Scott was out of town and I he had to take a red-eye flight home because his wife was too sick for him to stay. I remember the horror of the office visit that next morning, hearing words like: mastectomy, chemotherapy and hysterectomy. In the following weeks, I remember my mother's birthday being an unusually somber occasion. I remember Scott needing an excel spreadsheet to keep track of all of my medications. I remember friends coming to visit me in my pajamas. I remember Heather flying in from New York to my bedside. I remember Scott's mother taking care of me, because I couldn't do anything by myself. I remember my children staying with my parents, each lucky to have the other.

I remember too much.

This morning, I was listening to the song Seasons of Love, from Rent. If you've never heard it, I urge you to click here. It's beautiful. Here are some of my favorite lyrics, which brought me to my knees as I listened today.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes,

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Moments so dear.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights

In cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure

A year in the life?

How about love? Measure in love.

It's time now to sing out,

Tho' the story never ends

Let's celebrate

Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love!

Seasons of love!

Oh you got to, you got to

Remember the love!

You know that love is a gift from up above.

Share love, give love, spread love.

Measure measure your life in love.

You have walked this journey with me. You held me up when I couldn't go on alone. You shared in the laughter that sometimes seemed the only way to make it through the pain. This has been a horrible year: I was sick; I suffered through many surgeries and heartache; I am covered in scars; I have lost sensation in a significant part of my body and the ability to bear children; Scott and I watched our babies deal with confusion and mourning that should be way beyond their youthful years. It was rotten.

But, I am here. I am blessed and I am loved. I have three doctors appointments in the coming weeks and there is little reason not to believe that I will hear good news at all of them. (Although I think I will always find my good health to be suspicious. A 13% chance of recurrence doesn't feel so little to me.) While I remain painfully aware of what happened last February, there is a lot of good in my life, especially if I measure my life in love.

And if I look at it that way, my life is already very LONG.