Moving on…

Jake asked me to go with him tomorrow for orientation at the university I had attended. It’s not the school he will finish from, but they have an excellent pre-engineering program. This was his idea. He couldn’t have made a more sensible decision. He wants to take physics and calculus, and he knows he needs to ease back into it. He looks good, he feels good, and his attitude is excellent.  This amazes me because he recently had to endure a liver biopsy and was diagnosed with graft vs. host disease. He’s being treated with prednisone. He has been on that drug before and knows it’s nasty.  Ironically graft vs. host wasn’t a devastating diagnosis even though it cost Liza her life. It destroyed her mitral valve and lungs. For Jake, having a biological, perfect match donor, it meant his transplant was a success. It decreases his chance of having leukemia again by 50%. It meant Molly’s cells had completely taken over, giving him a new immune system.  He has been fighting sinusitis and congestion. He has watched his parents battle the same thing- it put me in bed for a week. Luckily he’s felt pretty good despite his symptoms. For the first time in his life, he’s experienced just having a cold. He’s been working part time and socializing with friends. I found out, they have been skateboarding in the parking lot. The other day a friend was lamenting her disappointment with a couple of coaches her kids had. I knew the feeling. Both of my kids have faced disappointments in life. Had Jake been healthy, I can only imagine what might have been as far as his high school sports career. Instead, he never finished a season. He tried. His coaches liked him, but knew he wasn’t their strongest player. He always appeared to be out of gas.  I told her that I understood, but then I added more. Her daughter was doing very well. She had not let her disappointments define her. She moved on. I understood, as a mom, how hard it was to let my own heartbreak for my child go. For me personally, when my son was dying, I realized none of that stuff in the past mattered. We all face disappointments. Humility isn’t a bad thing to experience. Her child had risen above it and moved on. My child will too. We need to also let it go…