The Long Road

We left mid afternoon on Saturday to drive to Martinsburg WV to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Auntie and Uncle.  We had just made the trip across the bridge 48 hours earlier for MHP's follow up at Hopkins.  These drives are long, mostly pleasant, allowing us to listen to good music, good programs, or have interesting, sometimes heated, conversation.  We discussed what our T-shirts would say (did you watch Glee?) and talked about the party we were attending, looking forward.  The party was a grand affair, good food, good drinks, lots of conversation, nostalgic and fun, for Auntie and Uncle are fun people.  On the long road home, we had the girls with us, we were laughing and joking, talking about the evening, revelling in the good time and in family.  And then Audrey asked quietly "Daddy, do you ever get mad?"  So quietly, it had to be asked again or maybe it wasn't understood the first time, but it was clear the second.  And we all listened to his answer.  How he is frustrated in being told what to do or what he can't do, how not knowing whether this was his last surgery or not, or realizing that most likely it was not, or how the cancer will or will not spread.  Yet he remains positive, hopeful, resting all in the caring hands of a young Doctor who lights up when he sees him and calls him Buddy, enjoying life the way he knows how, all of us knowing it's a long road, yet taking that long road, willingly for there is joy along the way.