I'd missed taking her to pre-school because of a MRI that morning so I'm picking her up instead.
"It's not that kind of picture," I laugh. "They look inside my belly. It'll take a while before we can see them."
"Oh," she smiles, sitting backwards.
Buckling my seatbelt, her head reappears between the console.
"Show me," she demands.
"What?" My belly?"
She nods, melting my heart.
Pulling up the tee-shirt, she examines the deep scar, kisses it, says, "That'll make it better," sits back in the seat and begins to sing.
The picture comes back soon enough and Sarah studies them intensely.
As suspected, I still have cancer.
Sizes, shapes and locations have changed.
It's not what we hoped though we're undeterred.
"I hear there's a diet this guy with a cancer like yours and his spots have all diminished," Sarah says at lunch.
We're discussing options, each from our unique perspective, so we talk without listening, holding emotions in check so we feel in control.
My wife wants to immediately step up the fight, willing to sacrifice anything to keep us together until I walk our little girl down the aisle.
“Wounded deep in battle, I stand stuffed like some solider undaunted," feeling the time I have rush downriver as I frantically seek joy in every single moment I'm living now!
We leave to retrieve Che who's excited to have actually seen a Leprechaun in class today and drive home together under towering billows of dark and stormy clouds.
