I am sitting in my car at a red stoplight. It's June in South Texas. I'm impatient and sweaty. There is a building to my left. That is where I left my 14-year-old son Stephen to start his chemo without me. We have a routine. He needs me to hold his hand. It's the first time I have ever left him. The building to the right is where I just dropped off my parents so that my Dad can get his chemo. Dad is really sick and will probably have to go across the street to the hospital to be admitted.
I am driving back to be with Stephen. I am torn between my need to be with my son and my fear that Mom, who was weak from her chemo, would not be able to push Dad's wheelchair if he needs to be admitted.
The light seems to be stuck on red. Why is it taking so long? Just be green already, my son needs me. As I sit there, I start to pray. I pray that Stephen has stopped sobbing. That someday he will understand that I did not want to leave him. I turn on the radio to try to stop my mind from replaying the sound of my son begging me not to leave him. My arm hurts; it's sore from having to lift my 250-pound Dad into the wheelchair.
Suddenly, I am having trouble breathing. My whole body starts to shake in pain. What is happening? I can't catch my breath; I am starting to panic. What is this? It's at that moment that I realized what was happening. Agony. I was in agony.
This is my story. it's not what I imagined my story would be. It's filled with belly-aching laughter, heartbreak so loud it could have broken the sound barrier, and peace so profound it became holy. Some of it's so unbelievable you will think it has to be made up. It's all real-not even I could make this up.
As I sat in my car, my child at chemotherapy in the building in front of me and both my parents in chemotherapy in the building behind me, I realized that I was in agony. Agony for my family, agony for myself, and agony because no one ever taught me how to get past the agony. There were so many things I wish someone had told me. I wish they had told me that it's okay to be broken. I wish they would have told me that sadness deserves a place. I wish they would have told me what to expect from others and myself when in agony.
No one told me. That is why I wrote this book. To tell my story. To tell someone who is struggling that they are loved, that it's okay that it's hard. I want them to know practical ways to survive. I want others to know real ways they can help someone who is struggling. I will share what you can do, and what you should not say.
I wrote this book so that no one else has to sit in their car on a hot summer day while in agony and not know that there is a way through to the other side.
