Erik MH:

Giv­ing thanks

This is Kar­en. Erik’s now gone into sur­gery, and I wanted to post a tale of gratitude:

Our fam­ily didn’t stop read­ing bed­time story as the kids got older – we just upped the con­tent to match their age level. We have been read­ing Lord of the Rings for our story for about a year now, and by coin­cid­ence our her­oes entered Mordor about the time Erik was dia­gnosed, and the par­al­lels, extend­ing Erik’s meta­phor, have kept sur­fa­cing in inter­est­ing ways.

For those who don’t know the story (there are some!), I will set the scene. When our prot­ag­on­ists (Frodo and Sam) reach the last stage of their jour­ney, they must enter Mordor, a place of great danger, where they are essen­tially walk­ing into the front yard of the (almost) omni­po­tent evil entity (Saur­on) who is on the lookout for them. At this point, their friends are too far away to help them with their mis­sion in any dir­ect way, but real­ize that what they can do is to risk their own safety by mount­ing an assault on Saur­on, draw­ing his atten­tion and troops away from the interi­or of his land, to allow Frodo and Sam easi­er pas­sage to their ulti­mate goal. Frodo and Sam have no idea what their friends have done, but their jour­ney into the heart of Mordor, which had seemed impossible, sud­denly becomes a bur­den they can shoulder.

Erik and I have felt much the same way:

When we learned about Erik’s can­cer, and the path we would find ourselves on this fall, we were quite over­whelmed, and the help from friends near and far, has enabled us to feel we can handle this chal­lenge. At the very begin­ning, we were at our fam­ily folk dance/​music camp, sur­roun­ded by friends, and their firm sup­port made a world of dif­fer­ence to our out­look. We told a few people at the time, and oth­ers didn’t even know the whole pic­ture, but knew that we needed their love and friend­ship without know­ing the details.

Since then, a num­ber of loc­al friends have come and assisted in the yard and garden, help­ing me feel much less daun­ted by the many autum­nal tasks which I’ve been shoul­der­ing, without Erik’s help this year. Oth­ers have offered to help with rides, food, house­work, and keep­ing Erik com­pany when needed (many of which we will take people up on in Decem­ber!). We got a lovely care pack­age from anoth­er friend, and innu­mer­able friends and fam­ily both near and far have sent such warm words of sup­port and encour­age­ment, that we have felt quite buoyed up and strengthened. And sev­er­al folks have expli­citly said I should call any­time I need a sym­path­et­ic ear. I’ve taken only a couple of them up on it, but it’s nice to know people are there if I need them.

I also want to give spe­cial thanks to a few people:

• Laura, our “exchange daugh­ter” from Ger­many, who came for a fun vis­it this August, and ended up cheer­fully help­ing with all sorts of tasks in the house and garden.
• A couple of dear friends who have offered to come up and vis­it dur­ing Erik’s con­vales­cence, allow­ing me to resume some of my work visits.
• Our friends Bar­bara and Chris, who have gra­ciously opened their home (near the hos­pit­al) for me to stay as much as I need when I’m on bed­side duty (and both of us last night, before our 5:45 arrival time this morning!)
• My won­der­ful par­ents, who are stay­ing at our house with Camer­on in loco par­entis while Erik’s in the hos­pit­al, and help­ing out as needed.
• And last, but not least, Camer­on, who has ris­en to the occa­sion with a matur­ity bey­ond their years, mak­ing din­ners (includ­ing patiently pur­ee­ing food for Erik when he needed that) and being gen­er­ally help­ful in so many ways, and uncom­plain­ing about all the dis­rup­tions to their seni­or year.

People’s emails, FB post­ings, Pos­tHope com­ments, phone calls, and actu­al let­ters and cards have lightened Erik’s spir­its over the last few months, and made him feel much less anxious about the sur­gery today. Thank you all!

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