I swear life around here is getting more and more like a soap opera every day. Today I discovered a good friend of my daughter's has intestinal cancer. At least that's what blood work shows here, and the family practitioner is sending her to the Mayo Clinic the end of this month for more tests.

The woman is in her late 20s. Her life has been a series of events more dramatic than my life...and that's bad. I remember one time a fellow worker told me that more happens in my family in ten minutes than happens in other families in a lifetime. Well, this lady seems to be challenging my record. Right now, she is a new mom, her husband left her two weeks after the baby is born, the father of her first two kids is dead, today I'm told she has cancer...and apparently the dad (married to her former best friend) wants her baby if something happens to her. That's good...but another family wants to adopt all her kids if something happens. And this lady isn't even completely diagnosed yet.

All they've done so far is blood work on her. It seems to me they would do a few more tests before sending her to the Mayo. They won't even venture to say what kind of intestinal cancer she has, and they don't even know if she has a tumor for sure. She has other health problems, but hasn't had insurance for a while. Now she has state-paid insurance, and she sure wishes she could have seen the doctor earlier about this.

She has no family to support her, other than her three young children. Her husband left her. Now it turns out he had a vasectomy, so there's no way he could be the father...which is how they determined that the father was her former-best friend's husband. Her oldest child is 8 and has behavioral problems that has had him suspended and required to attend another school. There's more, but that's enough. How do you help this? For now, since she hasn't asked for my help (she's asked my daughter for help, though), I'll let her try to sort it out herself. But you really want to take her and shake some sense into her..if you were afraid she wouldn't break.

Life really isn't fair sometimes.

This weekend I've been seeing all kinds of adoption recruiting messages out there. I'm not sure why, but there were several stories in various media about all the children that were available for adoption out there. One of them was news story where the moderator voiced an opinion that she could not believe a mother was encouraging her daughter to place her baby for adoption ("give the baby up for adoption" was the term she used, and one I hate). I can understand that thought, but sometimes it truly is the best thing to do. Only the baby's parent can make that decision, though. And that decision is a private, profound decision that deserves respect from all parties, including grandparents of the baby. Still, it was totally amazing to me that the moderator voiced this thought since the grandparents are probably more involved than most other parties other than the parents. Surely they have a right to voice their opinion. And it made me recall another situation that happened to me about 25 years ago, when I found myself pregnant and about to be a single parent.

I was attending a vocational school, and one of the programs that the school presented to everyone was a surprise to me. Given about a month after I started to show and wear maternity clothes--and shortly before my baby was actually born--the program focused on the adoption process and the positive reasons for single parents placing babies for adoption. It was an interesting program, but I never even for a second thought to place my baby for adoption. It was not even on my radar at the time. And I was totally surprised to find that one of the presenters was a male that attended many of the same classes as did I...and who sat with me at lunch time, probably one of the people I considered a better friend at the school. He advised at this meeting that he had been adopted, and he and his friend--a gentleman whose son was actually placed for adoption about fifty years before--presented the idea of placing children for adoption in the most positive manner I had ever seen. I was impressed, and afterward I told this friend that he had done a great job and I was impressed.

That's when he told me that, basically, the entire program was aimed toward me, toward the school wanting me to have all the information I needed to make an informed decision. And, incidentally, this man--unemployed and attending school, but married to a woman that was working--would be a good parent for a baby that was placed for adoption. They wanted a baby badly. And I never even dreamed that he wanted mine! After that, he seemed angry with me because I didn't place my baby with him and his wife for adoption.

Now, looking back, it seems ludicrous to me that the school went so far as to present this information to a single lady so that she would place her baby for adoption! I love my child, and I loved her then. And for them to gather an entire school to present me this information--and then be upset becasue I chose to keep this child--seems so much worse than a grandparent suggesting that adoption be considered. Looking back, I see how this event influenced my life...but I didn't see it then.

Already not having much sense of community value, this helped consolidate some kind of knowledge in me that if I wanted something, I needed to identify it and work toward it--and use my knowledge to back up my decision. Even if it meant going against an entire community or family, if I feel something is right and worth doing, this I have to stand behind my knowledge and make it happen with my own strength. I know not to count on even friends, but it sure would be easier to act as a community than to have to act against a community.

Sometimes life just isn't fair.
Sometimes life can't give a break,
Sometimes the pain just won't stop,
And sometimes relief comes only once.

Sometimes friends don't seem to care.
Sometimes our hearts do not ache.
Sometimes our tears do not drop,
And sometimes faith does commence.

Sometimes we should have been there
Sometimes pain was for us to take
Sometimes we should have stepped up
And, sometimes, grace have pronounced.

Sometimes its too late to share,
And sometimes we offer prayer.

A lady died today. She had no financial worth, but her worth was as a lady. She loved with all her heart, and she cared with all her heart. She thought differently than I, and she gave priority to love above personal gain...and she taught her children to value friends above all else. She had more patience than anyone I know.

Yet, I was not a good friend to her. Yes, I was her friend--but sometimes I was not there for her. And I am so sorry. I knew she was suffering, yet I continued to live my life. And, at 57, this lady is gone. She'd suffered strokes and high blood pressure for some time, and she'd been diagnosed with an aneurism a few years ago. She had no money, so doctors didn't prioritize her treatment. Finally, when they decided to do the surgery, the aneurism had grown too large...and last night, she suffered a stroke followed by the rupture of that aneurism, and she passed into God's hands. I know she's at peace now, but now that it's too late, I wish I had given more to her when she was here with us.

A wonderful lady she was....and her grace will always live in my life.

It is the first day of 2008, and I am not feeling good about it. I don't know why, but I am dreading this year. I have a feeling there are some realities that I will need to face, and I don't want to. They're very scary. I just want to go hide under my blankets in my bed and let the world go on....

But each day will be a challenge, and I will need to face it with courage. Life can be good, and I must remember this.

Today my children and friends joined me for a holiday dinner. It went rather well, but I still feel rather like it was something done because it was supposed to be done, not because it was wanted. I want a good family time, but somehow it doesn't all seem real, more like this is supposed to happen at this time, and tomorrow will be another day that is already written and I just have to turn the page....

Let's hope the novel is interesting and provides a good subject for pondering as each new chapter is explored.

I am so amazed by all the different atmospheres I see when I visit in people's homes and eat supper with them. My home is pretty much "help yourself" and sit where you can. I make food, and then I announce to the household that the food is done. They then come to the kitchen, dish up, and eat wherever they find a place to sit down, usually in front of the television. It would be too difficult, I think, to get everyone together at one time to eat at the table.

But I go to my boyfriend's, and he and his mother eat every meal at the table. And when they have people visit, it is somewhat a constrained atmosphere. I daren't take more than one helping of anything for fear they'll judge me to be too fat and that's the reason...though they eat all kinds of sweets between meals, if I were to eat the same in front of them, because of my size, they'd purse their lips and let me know without any words how disapppointed they are in me. I just don't understand how some people can eat a huge piece of frosted cake and several cookies between meals...maybe some ice cream...and they never gain an ounce. And, in the presence of those people, if I take even a bite more than a single serving of anything, then I feel like I'm being ostracized.

I go to where I do respite care, and that's kind of a cross between the two styles. They prepare the meal and serve it at the table, but the atmosphere is much less constrained--and you don't feel criticized for taking a second dinner roll.

I go to another friend's, and the adults eat at the table and let the kids dish up the food and eat it where they like.

This weekend I'll celebrate a holiday dinner at my relatives. It is going to be totally insane when compared to any of these styles. It is buffet style, and you can sit at the table...or not. There's prayer, and there's lots of raw language. There's little kids sitting on their parents' laps, and there's friends coming in to share in the activity. Yet, through it all, there's an element of bitterness--and element that demonstrates how some of us are very uncomfortable with others. One sister won't even go; others wouldn't miss it.

Families are families, and I wonder if our eating styles reflect the kinds of relationships we share with each other.