IT'S ALL IN HIS HANDS

 The Short Version

Carepage Readers: Please scroll down to read the Long Version

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Evan was diagnosed in May, 2007 with High Risk Pre B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Evan completed active treatment for his blood cancer on September 18, 2010.  Once Evan makes it through the next 18 months without relapse, he will have, in the eyes of the pediatric oncologists in the medical community, an 80% chance of living a long and active life, free of this particular cancer. His survival rate increases each successive year thereafter and exponentially five years after diagnosis. Five years after treatment ends, Evan will be seen in the hematology world as officially cured, with the chance of relapse no greater than any one of us.  Evan will be closely followed for the rest of his life. Presently, he is being seen once a month. We are taking some time to walk around the race track, catch our collective breaths and begin to look towards the future. His lifelong battle against this beast will forever be my prison, even as Evan is optimistic and looking forward to his hard fought freedom. What we do know for sure is that we will leave it ALL In His Mighty Hands. The long term side effects of high dose chemo, if any, are unknown at this point. It is too early to tell. Evan, Ryan and I wish to thank you for your incredible support and many faithful prayers during our journey. I have every reason to believe that Evan will do many great things with the life he has been given. He already has.

 

ALL IN HIS HANDS

The Long Version

My washer broke. It broke early last week. Mind you, I am in an apartment with the boys right now, so the breakage meant obtaining and submitting a Work Order and waiting my turn for service.

When things break, there is an order in which repairs need to be made.

It was a long set of days, the ones without the washer. The clothes we wore mounted like the ants that climbed atop our material and joined the crumbs on the dishcloths, as if invited to the circus.  The white, almost mummified soap-scented washrags, tossed over and under the piles of colored jeans and streaked deodorant sleeves stamped themselves next to inside out sweatshirts, and these sights and scents mingled together like an old dirty slotted spoon left inside the crock pot near the stove. Axe scents and greasy, stale donut hole smells.

Dirty, messy, stinkin' rotten cancer laundry.

What a cacophony of broken-ness and disarray greets you when the washer breaks and stays broken for a very long time.

The days passed without our washer and soon we became somewhat used to the brokenness, or the "not so normal". We learned that it was not so important that we wear the latest fashions, only the cleanest ones. We learned to hang up the bath towels and use them all week long. We learned that if a rag used to wash the car  was clean, it was as good as any Nordstrom towel, and actually absorbed better, too. We figured out that if we would live dangerously and risk unpacking the emergency suitcase that was kept in the car for unscheduled trips to the hospital or an earthquake, we could use the socks and sweats rolled up in the bottom of the bags of cheesy snacks, glow sticks and books that we would never read, especially under duress. We learned that we could get by.   

 

It soon became evident that this broken pile of wash needed to be moved. A(nother) trip was in order. We figured out a plan, even as we knew plans had a way of blowing up, like IEDs on foreign dessert soil, directly in our path. We packed the car trunk with ALL, our jars of quarters were netted in the carriers and I filled the back end with large black Hefty trash bags abundantly full of stale seams and seamlessly endless coloreds.

Less is definitely more in the midst of broken-ness.

Within the confines of one of the ten most do not want to go places, namely the laundromat, I met the strangest of strangers. I presumed they were local. It was a universe, here inside this business. A melting pot of people and personal items.

There was one particular man who made it his business to stay warm and dry in the washateria. He fashioned himself as a pseudo attendant. He informed me, over and over again, through dirty teeth and dirtier breath (the kind that comes from stale plastic cups of day old beer in dumpsters) that he needed to prevent my passage further than the washers.

It seems, per the strange man with the stranger breath, that while I could come into the Laundromat with the best laid plans, and while I could wash my clothes, I could not dry them.

For you see, this unwelcome man informed me that the dryers had all manner of melted crayon in them, from a teenage prank or a mom too hurried to empty Scooter's pockets after school. Drying out the newly washed clothes on foreign soil would not be possible. Life outside of the confines of the normal spin cycle at home marched on in the lavenderia and changed by the minute and the man who seemingly had things under control. The only way I had of dealing with my now loaded clothes, was to reluctantly join the others on the unsteady plastic chairs, or painful walk around the room ...all of us on the slow moving carousel, the one going in directions not so normal.

 

The exorbitant and unexpected costs, on a per load basis, of the broken washer, namely the slotted coin mechanism asking for 15 quarters a load, while not wholly surprising, was no match for the need I had to clean the clothes.

There is a time in the midst of real brokenness when need trumps cost.

Therefore, I did not hesitate to pour my coins into the slots. I thought to select “cold” cycles, even though I worried about the lack of hot water and the germ fighting power of Tide, because I did not trust the machine that was proporting to clean my clothes. I had no choice to trust the process, but I thought to attempt to control it anyway. That particular cycle selector, the one that I planned to use and the one that I wanted was... yes, broken. So my clothes set about to wash themselves on high hot heat. Heavy Duty wash and spin cycle. All of the clothes that I had lovingly bought for my children and me now bore the brunt of the heat inside the washer, as I watched helplessly, and braved the steamy wait, in the hot, non air conditioned room, with the many metal bins and machines clinking and spinning wildly, while the strange strange man sat in the chair beside me. The doors of the machines were hellishly locked in a cycle entirely not of my invention.

 

I thought of many things as I sat next to the man and waited for our clothes to bake and as I watched the timer click away the minutes. I watched as our colored clothes were tossed about. No control. On with their business. Impervious to me. To Evan. To the best laid plans. I thought of these plans and the many days and nights I had managed to walk away from these plans, and head directly into the face of the monster and into the eye of an intensely raging storm. I saw visions, as I sat on this hard chair of the days and days beside hospital beds...

See, the clothes in this out of control washer, next to the strange drunk man, in a place hotter than Hades, was where I never wanted to be, planned to be or wanted to go again. This simple act reminded me, and then I tried not to remember, which made me think on the places and the sounds and the smells that you do not ever want me to write about, at least not without warning you first. Memories like those found in an old shed, or a ghost of a closet, housing the broken washer, only scarier.

I tried to dive around the indelible sights of back in the back,of my head and the ward, the barely lit BMT hallways, and the many closed and darkened doors, the too quiet hallways,  hallways with every door closed, and when you came out weref illed on the sides with way too many bins ad carts and rooms and doors. Bin after bin of sanitary, hospital gowns, stacked and starched pillowcases with black hospital lettering and those dates...those dates... stamped on them, dates that were the indicators of others who used them, hopefully washed them, and when and where they went, on to better sleep. Dates stamped the pillows under my son's.... I tried not to see, as I sat in the plastic chair, with the metal legs- I tried not to see the towels, the white, sterile, small towels stacked under the heavy plastic curtained bin on wheels, meant to keep them clean.

 

 
I tried not to remember the crash cartS beside the sterile bins and the doors marked Conference and Procedure.

 

 

I tried not to remember the blood...towels. I tried most of all not to remember the faces of the parents, circling in and out of the rooms, coming out again, going in, quietly, carrying more towels, wearing old and dirty clothes and deeply creased foreheads. I tried not to remember where it was that I saw so many wet, stained eyes.

 

 

I remembered though, as I sat in this barren laundry room. I looked at our clothes spinning around in no particular order and I saw the oppressive steam edging and seeping from the machines. I remembered.

Then my thoughts shifted. I prayed. You see, I pray when I wash clothes. These days the prayers take me to all the times and places  I had prayed so deeply and tearfully to forget. Praying  over my son's clothes as I took them out of the washer, in places so foreign to us, deep in the bowels of strange and large and important rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Evan's little white sock.

Lord, please...please...won't YOU please, just give his little feet more time to grow... into these small little socks?

Here is his shirt. It's his favorite shirt, Lord. Dear God, won't You please keep his heart safe, just like this soft safe shirt makes him feel?

Please, Lord, give me time to fold even larger clothes of Evan's.  Please. Please. Let Evan sit up, get dressed and walk out of this hospital in these brand new slipper socks.

Dear God, won't You please...just... let... my... son... live?

Just a little more living, God...just a little more living.

The water...it comes...

To wash away the...

 

Finally, (sigh) the maintenance schedule bore my name, some few days later and the washer was fixed. Rather, the washer was repaired.

It will never be the same, this broken washer, and I know, but pretend, otherwise. Yesterday, despite the knowing-yesterday found me dancing. I have so completely enjoyed placing each and every item of our newly dirty laundry inside the barrel of the gun, washer, in the privacy of my home, in my repaired washer and I have bounced gleefully along with the now purring spin cycles. Music to my ears. Clean, crisp, fresh, softly scented clothes--homespun. Dry. All folded and put away.

ALL does get clothes cleaner.

There is no place like home....

 

Everyone should experience a break...of a washer, now and again. A broken washer, by virtue of its brokenness brings home the idea, in no uncertain terms, that the have-ing and the not-have-ing are all very much related. One begets the other. Everyone should experience brokenness, for it is in the broken-ness that we learn what to appreciate. Most broken washers, unlike people, are merely a hassle and a work order away from fixing. Conversely, we learn what is much more important than a broken appliance.

When something breaks we learn what really matters- what truly counts and we definitely learn what we can handle and what we should live with, and without.

Worry comes to mind. Toss it.

Love...Health...Minutes. Keep.

 These are a few of my new favorite things.

 

Life teaches us best, in the broken moments.

When something breaks, we learn what can be replaced.

We learn what cannot.

 

We learn to make substitutions.

We learn what cannot be substituted.

Some breaks are worthy of our undivided attention.

Many breaks are not.

Some breaks are life altering.

Most are not.

Some breaks touch

whole communities

and schools

and cub scouts

and rock stars and

entire families.

Some breaks touch our children. Harshly.

Breaks that touch children are the saddest. Hardest.

Some breaks feel like a thousand razor cuts.

Ten times over, in merthiolate tincture with an alcohol glaze and a hot poker for good measure.

Some breaks are the stuff of which love is made.

Some breaks are fixed from the inside out and some from the outside in.

Some breaks will break you.

Some will not.

Some breaks will break you if you don't break them first.

Some breaks can be prayed away.

All breaks should be prayed about.

People who are broken need love, most of all.

Some breaks can be laughed at. Not people. People who break should not be laughed at.

Some breaks require a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone, but not in that order.

Sometimes it becomes necessary to beat the broken thing to a pulp, pulverize it, toss it, blend it, spin it around on it's high head, heat it, freeze it, and put it through long cycles over and over and over and over again until you are dared to believe that life is the most unfair set of events ever, to think that the moments that your sick child experiences that will surely break you or break you down,  if you were alone. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  Then, some serious breaks require that you take to the spin cycle two or three times more, each with a bleach and a hot rinse, preferably in what feels like the eyes, for good measure. Sometimes, you have to not only reach inside the bottom of the metal barrel, but you also have to reach deep down into the vastly dark small holes inside the pit and fight to pull out dragons, through teeny tiny holes, no bigger than a button. Sometimes you have to do this with both arms tied behind your back while singing Jesus Loves Me. This I know. Sometimes you have to even get inside the break, or the holes, one by one, and spin around the hardness and the vastness of this machine we call living, millions and millions of times, before the next cycle begins. Most of all, you must be very, very thankful for each glorious moment. Thankful to the core of your being, for the lessons, the breaks and the living moments.

 

Some breaks are all about small gifts.

Some breaks are all about large habits.

Some breaks are designed to break you down.

All breaks will teach you...

teach you that...

normal is nothing...

normal is nothing

but a cycle on the washing machine

Sometimes these breaks hurt.

And they never feel like fun.

Some breaks take a

very

long

time

to

repair.

Some breaks are not easy to fix.

 

 

Like cancer.

 

 

Evan has this day successfully completed his course of treatment for High Risk Pre B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

3 years, 6 months, 5 days and counting.

Evan the Warrior is a survivor.

He is fixed.

He is no longer broken.

He has been repaired.

He is clean and clear of all cancer.

This is the prayer.

We have met a prince,

 a Warrior

 

 A small boy.

Evan the Warrior.

This warrior lived to tell about it. He's not one of the lucky ones. He is just a child. And he misses the children who have passed before him.

Thank God, this prince of a little boy lived.

. ..amid all the broken-ness and the sick-ness and the sad-ness…and the spinning...and the heat and the unclean and the fight, and the blood and the mess and the long, hard barren roads...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He lived.

 

 

 As a postscript to what is perhaps the greatest story I will ever tell...I am this young boy's mom.

 

I am so thankful that I was chosen to be his mom and to travel this road with him.

Today, I am very, very glad.

Today, I am very, very thankful.

I am blessed to have been on this broken road with my warrior son.

I am so very glad we left it ALL in His hands.

My soldier boy is well...for today

and well on his way to a full recovery, for now.

That is all that I could ever ask for...do...or need. Ever.

Even as I have a duffel of laundry to do.

 

 

Thank you for sharing this broken road with us. Thank you for supporting us as we aired our dirty laundry all these many years. Thank you most of all for the prayers. It is not over. We have only just begun to fight.

 

 

Finally, in parting, as we seem to live in such broken times, and as we travel these seemingly broken roads, and experience many levels of brokenness these days, I invite you to remember Evan. If you should ever feel broken, please... think of Evan and all the small children like him, here and in Heaven too. The list is endless. Think of Evan and these sweet, innocent children and remember the blessings in your life, right here, right now, right in front of you.  If you ever feel broken, hopefully, you can be be made stronger for having known my little man, with all his dirty laundry and all the precious giant hearted brave children like him, fighting for every single minute of living. You do the same. Fight for every single minute. There can never be enough minutes. Thank you for allowing me to share Evan's journey with each and every one of you. May you be blessed on your journey, and, above all, may you have abundant health.

 

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone.

God Bless.

xoxo,

mom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Lisa]

Kimberly, thank you for your inspiring words, your inspiring journey, your inspiring son. We are thrilled to hear about Evan's conquest, and will continue keeping him and your family in our thoughts, hearts, and prayers! Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!

[Ray Kutylo]

Kimberly,
What a wonderful Thanksgiving it is this year! I'm keeping you, Evan, and Ryan in my thoughts and prayers.
Ray the Realtor

[Mel]

Hey! Well, what do I say? I LOVED THE PICS ON THE BEACH!!! Made me cry. Where can I get a copy??? I have no words for the A/C you are headed into, but I suppose...none are needed. I gotta go, I have laundry to do.

<3 and then some.
The Crew.