Happy Valentines Day!

So Valentine’s Day is the celebration of true love or something nearly like it.  Lots of us fake it or hope for it.  But it still remains illusive and there’s an outside chance that what we think is love might not be love—for awhile.  Give or take a couple of kids, some financial whooptedos, and 30 years together, some of us will have a decent clue about what love means and who might be in our back corner over the long term.

Today, we had another turn at love within our family.  It was my cousin’s annual check up, the one she gets at the cancer clinic, complete with labs, a scan or two, a thorough going-over by her oncologist—Dr. Dan, a truly brilliant, good guy. 

We await these days with calmness and aplomb, but inside we are a complete, withering mess, and until Dr. Dan gives the O.K., we are not O.K. Every thing hinges on a 20-minute appointment and it takes us all day to get that much done.  Medicine has in its own time zone. 

One of Julie’s nurses stopped by to give Julie a hug in the waiting room.  “You are our miracle kid,” she said.  We know.  Her cancer was a bad one. 

So today, we go what we wanted for Valentine’s Day, an intact family, another crack at life, and love enough.  I wish that for each of you