Mondays.

Here we are again, the beginning of another week. The term is over in 8 days… not that I’m counting. Today mom has been admitted to hospital again, for a potential blood clot. A reminder that this disease is taking over her life bit by bit. After a mostly relaxed and uneventful and good weekend, last night reminded us all that life is precarious and remains out of our control.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Mom and I managed to get to church. I was in complete awe of a young woman in the congregation who had received a breast cancer diagnosis this week. There she was, singing away with her three children, business as usual. But I know she has had hardships in her life, losing a baby late in pregnancy, and followed by another difficult pregnancy. She’s had battles to fight that none of us knows anything about. And then here she is in church with a brave smile and supporting others around her. Finding the strength to tell my mother that yes three weeks after her mastectomy she’ll be in form enough to attend and sing at moms birthday party. Where does she find that strength, the belief, the conviction to go on? How can she be so strong? Why is it that I feel so week so angered and enraged by my life circumstances which arguably are nothing compared to hers. How is it that some people can get through life with the glass always half full? And why do I feel mine is always on empty.

Is it faith? a strong deep conviction that there is a power other than us? Is it possible, as my mother will attest, to just turn it all over to God? I’m not there yet, I’m struggling to get there, I want to be there but I simply am not. I am determined to believe that I have some control over my life, ultimately maybe that’s my undoing. Perhaps if I just turned it all over I would feel less anxious and less out of control. It’s something I’m considering.

For now, I struggle to maintain control over things that are plain and simple out of my control.