Friday, February 22, 2013

Hello, it's been a long time.

Well, it's been a long time since my last blog post - January 2012 actually. I started out with good intentions, as always, but it didn't last. My heart just wasn't in it. The few people who do occasionally read my posts already know that 2012 was a rough year for the Zirt family.  Our beautiful daughter-in-law Jennifer was diagnosed with late stage cancer in October 2011 and so 2012 was all about chemotherapy, radiation, trips back and forth to the cancer treatment center in Chicago, and finally having to say goodbye long before we were ready.

That was October 2012. I often tried to blog about some of our experiences. There were certainly a lot of stories. We met some very courageous and wonderful people along the way, most of them fighting the same fight. We all became cheerleaders for one another.  Laughed and cried together. Saw some miracles. Suffered some losses.

But I couldn't blog about it.  I was always holding my breath, afraid to breathe. The doctors never gave us any real hope, and I think I needed there to be hope for me to blog about. I'm sorry, too, because I learned so much about the beautiful, courageous young woman that was my daughter-in-law.  She amazed me every day. It would probably take a poet to adequately do justice to the beautiful young woman she was and the courageous battle she fought.

Just let me say that we were truly blessed to have called her our own.