Across Eight Aprils! Can you believe it????

Eight years ago today, I was in surgery having the right upper lobe of my lung removed three days after having radiation to my brain.  Such a crazy time.  Such a juxtaposition between what nature had wrought within me and the beauty she shares so abundantly every April here on the mountain.  When you pair that with my love for, Across Five Aprils, the story of a family during the American Civil War, so beautifully written by Irene Hunt, I find April particularly poignant and lovely.

My Aprils....

2017 ~ Across Seven Aprils
2016 ~ Spring Fling - Across Six Aprils
2015 ~ Across Five Aprils
2014 ~ Across Four Aprils....A melanoma perspective...
2013 ~ This year I didn't follow my usual look back...but wrote this instead:  UBUNTU - (oo-bun-too). I am, because we are.
2012 ~ Across Two Aprils
2011 ~ I fear I was too deep in the soup of my trial to look about me as much as I might have.  But on April 1, there was this:  A poem of comfort and sound advice for you... While on April 24, I reported on my most recent trip to Tampa:  More pie....well 3/4's at least!!!!
2010 ~ On this day, 8 years ago, there were these posts from my sweet girl:
Today is...a big day
Update on the surgery:
The Worst Part is Over
While on April 27, 2010, after application of my halo (Probably the only one I'll ever wear!!  HA!) while awaiting SRS...I wrote:  Brain Squeezers  Later that evening, there was this:  Home Again
I still like the essay written just before starting this blog:  Life

Yesterday, April did herself proud!  We had BIRD day!!!

I reveled in being present, listening to their busy twitter as I made a small rock wall around a flower bed, moved irises to new beds (I know!!!  I should have done that in the fall...but, it will all work out!!!), dug up some plants to share with a friend who has a new home, moved a few bluets from one creek to another, returned errant mint to its proper bed, and generally had a grand time playing in the dirt while enjoying nature's beauty.

We rounded out our evening at a vigil, sponsored by Chattanooga Students Leading Change who have been amazing in organizing rallies and our local  March for Our Lives, in honor of those who lost their lives to gun violence at a Waffle House in Nashville.

So, for just a moment ~ today ~ I look back.  I look back with great thanks and appreciation for those who cared for me and mine on that day 8 years ago and ever so many days since.  I look back on the beauty of yesterday and all the other Aprils I have been so generously blessed to enjoy. 

Most days, I look forward.  Today, I took care of my kiddos.  Helped a friend plant special flowers in her yard to commemorate a time of beauty and the pain of loss.  Each day I seek to contribute my bit, to strangers and dear ones alike, such that my presence on this spinning ball may be in some small way of value, if only for our brief moment.  But most of all, on days like today, I look to my heart...my ME...my reason...my love ~ B.  You have made, and continue to make, my Aprils possible.  With much love to you all ~ les