Cause to Celebrate
January 2010 - Journal
by Melissa Gibbs
The word anniversary conjures up happy feelings in most cases. The anniversary of my birth has been celebrated exactly forty times, and though I missed attending, the twentieth anniversary of my graduation from Spring Valley High School was recently observed. Last November, my seventh-grade sweetheart, J.D., and I celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary. But this month’s anniversary is an awkward one. Three years ago on January 9, J.D. and I were in a hospital room in Charlotte, awaiting results from a bone marrow biopsy. Our fourth son, Taylor, just two then, was hours away from a diagnosis of leukemia.
Though it seems a lifetime ago, I can return to those moments in an instant. The day had begun with a routine doctor visit for Taylor’s “virus” or possible ear infection. I had expected a prescription for antibiotics, but was, instead, preparing for chemotherapy. How drastically our lives changed in one day. Now, I marvel at all we have endured–and all we have to celebrate. It would seem that January 9 should be a sad anniversary. It was the date that labeled our family with the ugly cancer word and initiated us into the subculture of disease and suffering. It is an anniversary connected with pain and loss for our family.
