On Friday, August 20th, the hardest year of my life came to a close. It’s difficult to believe that April has been gone for an entire year – a very, very long year.
It truly was a blessing that April and I had no idea how close she was to death in her last summer. We had parties at April’s request, we worked (she was still employed full time by Pellissippi State up to the last Friday that she went in the hospital), and our struggles seemed ordinary in many ways. It would have been so much harder if we had known that she was so close, if she had not been so tough and positive minded.
She didn’t believe the end had come until she heard it from the doctor’s mouth. Up to that point – even when Dr. Gharavi told us that she was going through liver failure – she still thought that she was going to be returning to work in a few days.
As difficult as those two years during April’s diagnosis and battle with cancer were, they were a blessed time that I cherish and miss terribly. I miss April so much.
But life goes on. As we all know, life goes on. We don’t have the choice to stop time and reverse to the days when our loved ones were still with us. We can’t re-wind to say “I love you” one more time, or to do more special things for them to say with actions louder than words that they are loved. We move forward.
Our year without April has been forward moving. Babies have been born and conceived; houses have been re-modeled; a career in medicine has begun; business plans have been laid, and new friendships forged. I can see paths before me that lead to new places and ways of life that I’d never before considered as a possibility.
This is as it should be. It’s as April would want it to be. She loved us – all of us. And she would have been so pleased with each of our victories and treasured moments.
In closing, my dear ones, I offer you words that April would have said at this time, were she able. Live well. Have a party. Eat some chocolate. And smile to know that you are loved from this side and the next.
Mac
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