I’ve had a bad couple of days. I was very anxious about the CT scan for my neck which my oncologist scheduled to make sure the pain in my neck doesn’t involve any cancer there (my primary care physician has diagnosed arthritis in my neck). I can’t have a MRI because the expander in my left breast has a port in it with a metal backing. Sooo, the CT scan it was.

Between being anxious about that and some things here at work being “off” yesterday, I had a really crappy day yesterday and part of today. Things are better now for a few reasons: the stuff at work has been resolved, and I got the results of my circulating tumor cells test (which measures the cancer in my blood) back, and it was my new favorite number: ZERO!! It must not be definitive because my oncologist also ordered the CT scan, but I’m being cautiously (very) optimistic at this point.

Throughout all of this, though, I had a few people in the back of my mind, most notably a family I don’t even know but whose story has just broken my heart, that of mamapundit and her son, Henry Louis Granju.

Through my anxiousness, through my tears over my situation, I could still look at my small intact family and my larger intact extended family. They are all here except my dad who died 23 years ago. I could look at my incredible friends who are all here except my friend S. who died nearly 20 years ago. There are problems, there are arguments, there are various crises that we’ve gone through and will continue to go through. But they — especially those most important in my life, Absent Minded Professor and Energy Boy — are here, are healthy, are in my heart and in my everyday life.

Shortly before Henry died, I went through back posts and found out the entire story, the sad, tragic story of his addiction and then his beating and overdose which lead to his death. I shuddered as I thought of his mother, his other loved ones. I took her words about telling our children how wonderful they are to heart and one night told EB how great he is and how much I love him (of course, we do that a lot anyways). And then I added:

and don’t do drugs!

Being only eight years old, EB said:

I don’t even know what that means.

The fact that he doesn’t know what that means at his age is a blessing. However, I don’t think it’s too early to get one of those children’s books about drugs and read it to him and talk to him about it. We build the foundations for our kids’ choices when they’re young, after all — not that we can protect them from everything. I don’t believe that and I don’t for one minute blame Henry’s mother. In fact, my heart goes out to her, this woman I don’t know, but I simply know as a mother who has lost one of her children, what I consider to be about the worst thing that could happen to anyone. It’s just that it’s so outside the natural order of things — we parents are supposed to go before our children. We want to raise them, watch them grow up and we hope and pray that they grow up happy and healthy . . . but there’s only so much we can do towards that end.

Dawn has written a beautiful post about how hard it is to be a parent these days. And it is. It’s challenging and wonderful and rewarding and difficult and the hardest job ever with the greatest rewards ever . . . or, sadly, the greatest loss ever.

I just can’t imagine. One of my co-worker’s sons died last July in a car accident, and when I heard, I cried for two hours straight. That case was closer to home, and I still get chills when I think about it. Sometimes I want to wrap EB up in industrial-strength bubble wrap and not let him leave the house . . . but of course, I can’t do that. All I can do is what these other parents have done — the best job I can as a parent along with a boatload of hope and prayer.

My heart goes out to any parent of loss, always, but even more so during these past few days. These past few days have truly made my problems, as difficult as they are, seem small.