Actually, that’s not completely true. What I really hated about 2018 was going through 2018. I don’t regret the patience God taught me. I don’t feel bad about the compassion I gained. I wouldn’t undo the lessons I learned.
Bad always comes with good and, for some reason, life requires every one of us to take it as a whole. I'd think there would be some type of refining effect that would come along with this process as one year moves into another. Someway to make it more good than bad and offer some kind of guarantee that you did it all the right way. 2017 pretended for us; so did 2018.
At the beginning of 2017, we were fighting a losing battle, cancer was all over Anne-Marie’s body and we were waiting for a report to confirm it. The doctors were wrong.
At the beginning of 2018, the prognosis was good, only one last tumor remained and we were waiting for a report to confirm it. The doctors were wrong. Wrong again.
If we haven't figured out how to turn bad into good, you would at least think that we'd have learned how to defuse (or diffuse) the shock and grief that comes from getting the unexpected phone call. Or on the positive side, how to take the good news with all its joy and relief in stride. Forgive us. We haven't figured that out yet. 2018 proved it.
All kinds of memories were made with the family. A new school, surprise trips out of town, milestones reached, holidays celebrated. Those all happened in between the challenges. Or maybe the challenges happened in between the happy memories. I can't tell for sure.
But I do know I will never be the same. Hopefully some of the changes I and we've gone through in 2018 will be for the good in either the long or short term. But without doubt, never the same.
Maybe you hate 2018 too. You won't find any judgment here. But somewhere in the somewhere that you didn't look, you may find that 2018 loved you more than you thought.
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