Cancer Doesn’t Get to Take Everything

Like all of you, I hate cancer. The past two weeks our family has been mourning and saying farewell to a beloved family member, my Father-in-Law, Kurt. He was one of the very best ones. Someone who knew how to love people the moment he met them, as he did with me. He knew how to serve people and gave every part of himself to the people and causes in his world that needed him. We love him and will forever feel that it was too soon to have to say goodbye. He fought bone cancer as long as he could before it took him.

These weeks of sadness and feeling like we are missing an important part of our family have been a time of reflection to be able to consider what Cancer selfishly took from us, and the wonderful and priceless things that it can’t take.

We spent this last weekend honoring Kurt with a Graveside service as well as a weekend devoted to the love of family and friends and sharing thoughts and hugs. It seems that we recognize more in these experiences that our lives are limited in time and so each moment, hour, day, week, and year are important in shaping who we will become and what the culmination of where we put our efforts with the time we have will amount to.

With that in mind, my husband Dave and I took the opportunity this weekend to be adventurous. With busy lives and schedules that we live with our kids, we sometimes don’t know how to add in a few of the things we’ve always wanted to try or do but we decided to do just that, to break up our drive as we made the trip to Phoenix for the graveside. The hike we chose was a fun escape that descended from the Rim of Glen Canyon down 700 feet to the beautiful, ice cold river below. The name of this hike is the Ropes trail, which is some parts trail, some parts rock scramble, and the excitement of holding onto ropes and cables to assist on the way up and down. Some hikes wind their way to a viewpoint or a lookout but this hike is a special treat because the entire hike is surrounded by beautiful views.

No cacti were injured in the making of this blog post:)

Just about to make our descent.

Dave and I have been very lucky to have not lost many family members yet, but the jarring impact of losing a parent has been a reminder to us to find the time to do the fulfilling things in our lives, say the things that need saying, hug our loved ones tightly, and do a few more of the things on our bucket lists whenever we can.