6 Years

6 years ago I was at a pumpkin patch.
While I was picking out my perfect orange beauty with my best friend Anna, Andrew was being told he probably had cancer.
So they gave him a biopsy.
And two days later, while I was taking my freshly opened birthday presents upstairs, I heard him tell my little sisters about the bone cancer in his leg.

We didn't know that he would never go back to school.
We didn't know that pediatric cancer is a whole different ball game than adult cancer, and that his cancer, Osteosarcoma, is in a class and regimen of its own.
We didn't know that we needed to accept all the offered help.
We didn't know that saying "We're fine" wasn't doing us any favors.
We didn't know how expensive living in a hospital is.
We didn't know what resources we had at our disposal, if we had asked.

We didn't know the nurses and doctors would become our family.
We didn't know that we were about to develop a whole new vocabulary. (EMLA, Cisplatin, mucositis, Methotrexate, portacath, hyperbaric, Vancomycin, the list goes on....)
We didn't know that one year would become two, and two would become three.
We didn't know that he would get too weak to read, or talk, or watch movies.
And speaking of movies, we didn't know that there are some we would stop watching forever, because it was too raw, too painful.
We didn't know that Andrew would be spitting up blood while trying to smile opening presents Christmas morning.

We didn't know that angels will truly stay with you, minister to you, and help you. They will be on your right hand and on your left.
We didn't know that many of those angels were the people we already knew, who stepped up to the plate, even when we said "we're fine."
Before cancer, we didn't know how much we loved just being together, all 7 of us (until Nate came along right in the middle of it) and watching movies, laughing, talking, driving, anything.
We didn't know that Nate would be our joy in the middle of pain.

But now I know.
I know that you don't ask what you can do, you find something to do and do it.
You ALWAYS smile at the people you pass. Who knows what their life is like.
I know what is real. What matters.
I know that you don't just heal after something like that. We are still healing.
I know never to believe "we're fine."
I know that the Savior never abandoned us.
I know that Andrew is strong. My strong, brave, triumphant big brother.

I know that I am a better person because of this hard thing we lived.
Here's to many, many more years.