We had such a great few days, starting Friday night. Alec, Millie and I went fishing and although we did have a single bite, we had one big God Wink. We were coming back into shore and only about 2 or 3 miles off the coast we saw spouting whales. As we came closer and stopped the boat, there were at least 10 whales circling us. It was so amazing, they are so gentle and graceful. They just played around the boat for about a half hour. At one point Alec saw a huge black blob on his fish finder...he shouted "there is something real big at 25 feet, now 10 feet, now 0!" Sure enough, right under my legs which were dangling over the bow, the whale surfaced and I could have touched him! It was a night neither of us will ever forget. The sun was setting and here we were just sitting in the boat with whales surrounding us, I think it was Gods way of telling us we were not alone and he was with us.
3 whales!!!!
One big one.
The one by my feet!
Saturday Alec's family met us at the boat at 6:32 am and we were off again, fishing for the day. Even though we are all girls, we can all hold our own and fish pretty darn well! We had such a great time and the weather was just perfect...a little too perfect in fact, we saw a naked man swimming off the island we were fishing at. Ewe! Not something you see every day in Maine! Alec's mom was the only one who caught a striper, a 32 incher! Not bad for her first fish! We also checked the pots and had 6 lobsters. Then we spent the rest of the day at the beach and enjoyed lobster and steamers with Alec's family and my mom and dad. What a great day!
"Nice fish Ma!" - Alec
Sunday my family all came over and we had another beautiful day at the beach and celebrated Fathers Day. Little Julia is learning to like the sand (now if her dad would just relax...its just sand Bob!") I have probably eaten buckets full over my lifetime.
Jill and Julia
Dad and all his girls.
It is really amazing when you are surrounded by loved ones, life is so much easier and our problems feel so far away. Once Sunday night rolls around and the house is empty, it kind of slaps us back to reality. Alec keeps saying how great it is to have company. Anyone at any time is welcome to come up. I think, (if I do say so myself!) we are even more fun to be around these days, we don't take a single moment for granted and we laugh harder and more often.
We were lucky enough to get some more of Auntie K's brownies and also Auntie Beth, we had a taste test Saturday night and Alec thinks it was a tie. Thank you, so yummy! Also, my friend Deb sent us a beautiful prayer shawl from her church, we are going to wrap ourselves in the shawl and pray every night! Thank you.
My mom sent us a bunch of books this week about Hope and cancer and God. I really liked this piece of advice:
"Grasp a new perception of what cancer is not; what it has not. Cancer does not have a brain or a spirit. It doesn't have the ability to plan or be cunning. It doesn't have a heart that causes it to fight or a spirit that gives it the reason to. It is you who has the brain, the ability to plan its demise. And it is you who has the heart and soul to bring to this fight."
Through reading these books I have learned so much. I am learning that I am optimistic, almost to a fault, to the point of denial. And I become panicky when Alec is having a moment of doubt or is feeling sorry. I need to accept that this is OK, and that just because he is sad for a few minutes, does not mean his cancer is spreading or he will not be cured. I simply need to be there for him and maybe just saying nothing at all is best. It is not going to hurt him if he sees me sad or teary either. We are all only human after all.
I also learned that it is nothing that a cancer patient did or did not do to cause cancer. Looking back you want to blame something, but there is literally no known cause of colon cancer. At least with lung cancer it can be blamed on smoking (most of the time) and melanoma is from the sun or cervical cancer is from HPV. They just really do not know what causes the others and there is no use trying to place blame on anyone or anything.
Since today was the first first official day of summer, and the longest day of the year, we decided to take advantage. When I got home from work, we went for a long walk on Kennebunk beach, looked for beach glass and played with Millie. We went to the port and had fried clams from the Clam Box and then ice cream. Not a bad way to officially start summer!
Alec starts chemo tomorrow. We hope things go smoothly and that this chemo kicks some serious cancer butt. Alec must respond well to this chemo...please pray that he does and it shrinks the spots on his liver and lung. He also has a thoratic MRI on Thursday to determine what exactly the spot on his spine is. Please pray that it is nothing.
Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support. We are so blessed, our life is just so darn perfect minus this cancer thing! We really are so, so lucky in so many ways and we must remember that.
Happy Summer!
Love,
Heather, Alec and Millie
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