Saul came to bed last night at about 1 in the morning. In my grogginess, I heard him say, “Jojo was asking lots of questions. I told her.”
Jojo is our 11 year old daughter. All of a sudden I was wide awake wondering what my little girl was thinking and my husband was fast asleep.
Morning came and Jo gave me a big hug. “Wanna talk about it?” I asked. “No.” she replied.
“Well, I really want you and your brother (9 year old Charlie) to hear about this from my perspective, so why don’t you come over here and have a seat.”
I started to tell them about the marble in my breast and how we didn’t know exactly what it was, but we were going to do a little surgery to find out. I reminded them that Jesus tells us not to borrow trouble from tomorrow, so we’re just going to focus on today.
Kids minds work differently than adult minds. Who knew? Here are some of the things Jordan gathered from her Daddy the night before and her other pontifications about the news.
-He told us that is there is something wrong, there is a small chance that mom will die.
-He asked us “Do you guys have any questions?” like a bazillion times.
-We were all really tired and I cried. Dad’s eyes got wet, but he didn’t really cry. He said he was crying because I was crying.
-He asked me, “How did you become so perceptive?” because I picked up on what was happening when I heard him ask Mom if she was doing alright.
-Every other ad at the clinic says, “Mammograms save lives. Schedule yours today!” I saw that Dad got you flowers and a card that said Mammograms stink. When you see all those things, you just start making connections.
-Today, I was kind of on a roller coaster. I won my track race, so I was happy, but then I started thinking about you, Mom, and I was sad.
-I never full out cried today, but I kind of got a little weepy at times. It’s hard. Even if we don’t that something is actually wrong, it’s still hard.
-It’s all so sudden.
-Dad seemed to be really stressed about the whole situation, but he did say, “We can’t let a little scare stop our whole life.”
-We didn’t want to wake you up, because you were being so good about it. I wouldn’t have known if Dad hadn’t kept asking you if you’re okay.
-I glad I know. It’s better to know. I want to get through this as a family.
-I told Dad, “I don’t want Mom to have to go through that stuff.”
-I know that if you lose your hair, you’ll just rock the look. And I’ll sew you a whole bunch of head stuff. So I’m not worried about that.
Charlie’s thoughts:
-It felt like two nights ago.
-Are you writing everything I say?
-Dad said that you had something growing inside of you.
-Dad said over and over and over, like 10 billion times, “Do you have any questions?”
-I totally forgot about the hair thing. I wonder what you’d look like bald…
