My Daughters Set the Example

As a child I was afraid of the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. She was green, ugly and screeched.  Her pets, those hideous monkeys, were equally as terrifying to me.  It was shown on television every year and my family would sit around the living room after dinner and watch it together.  I feel as if I am aging myself by saying that this was before VCR's, DVD players and such.

Now, as an adult, I am afraid of heights, clowns, severe thunderstorms and, I have come to realize more and more this week, the unknown.  I have caught myself crying as I await my visit with the oncologist for the first time this Thursday.  My mind goes back to when I was a child and my mother had chemo treatments.  The treatments took a beautiful, fun loving and vital woman and turned her into something that people stared at when we went out.  Not the typical stares that she would get before the cancer, but gawking, "what's the matter with her" stares from strangers.

These images have been going through my mind.  Things my mother said as well keep repeating themselves.  I remember my mother sick and telling me that the chemo made her mouth taste like metal.  I remember her having to have her stomach area drained of fluid with insanely long needles and tubes and having to be sent out of the room so I could not see the procedure.  I remember her bad blonde wig that she wore and I remember going out as a family and wanting to scream and yell at the people pointing and staring at her.  

Most importantly though, I remember her dignity.  She would hold her head up high, proud and tall wherever she went.  I cannot imagine that the staring did not bother her.  She was a beautiful woman and the looks that she got when she was sick were not the looks and stares that she was surely used to. 

There are times in our lives when we get scared.  My family did not know that I sat in the shower and cried for a half hour yesterday morning.  When Greg came back from church yesterday, all he had to do was say the word, "chemo", and I started to cry.  I told him I did not want to talk about it, I then told him and Ali of the growing anxiety I was having over Thursday's appointment and the fear of the unknown.  We all talked and got it out in the open, Greg assuring me that even if I were to get sick, would it really matter in the scheme of life, our future and the girls future?  No!  

Our oldest daughter Amanda is currently at Fort Knox in Kentucky undergoing Leadership Training for the ROTC.  She is studying nursing and wants to be an Army nurse.  In this age of technology, the ROTC has made live video feeds and photos available of the journey that she has undertaken.   She is part of Echo Company and we could not be more proud of what she has chosen to undertake.  The night before she left there were tears and anxiety; she was scared of the unknown.  But, she got on the plane in the morning without looking back and has jumped in.

Ali will be heading to Haverford College in August.  It is right outside Philadelphia and is 13 hours away.  When Ali started applying to schools we had many conversations about the schools that she was choosing as there were none close to home and she was already getting nervous about the idea of being so far away.  Greg and I brought up Northwestern several times as an option but she is very wise.  She told us that she did not want to apply there.  Not that Northwestern wasn't an excellent school but that it would not challenge her to go out and conquer the fears that she had of leaving home and truly being on her own for the first time.

So, this morning, as I watched a live video feed of what another company is doing and what Amanda will be doing very soon, I started to cry.  I cry with pride for her and what she is doing but also for the realization that came to me.  I need simply to look at my two most amazing daughters for the strength that I need to continue this journey that I am forced to undertake. Not only to be there and someday sit in the "dreaded front pew" at Old St. Pat's as my husband calls it [the pew that the brides parents sit in], but, to watch them, go forth and conquer their own fears of what lies ahead. They have done so willingly and with their head held high.  I must follow the example that my daughters have both set for me.