i am not sure how to do this yet...

i am having a hard time with figuring out how to live in this new place in our life. in lots of ways it's easy. not that life is easy. i do not mean that. but i have heard that sometimes people who have had cancer have a real hard time adjusting after they become cancer free. which seems a little silly because...'um the cancer is gone. be grateful and move on. but its not always that easy i don't think. i am thankful that for the most part our life is returning to normal. in some areas its totally back to what it once was. the big difference for me is that i will never be as busy as i was before i got sick. i found a lot of worth and value in how much i had going on. how many things i could get done. how i spent my time and the more i had to do the better. although i do love to relax and hang out...our family keeps a pretty busy schedule. but don't we all? i am yet to meet anyone who feels like they have all this time on their hands and are not sure what to do with it...its just not how people tend to role these days. and i do not think its really even bad or anything like that. it just is. but i am less busy now. i am okay with not having every hour of my day planned. justin joked with me yesterday that his schedule and how my planner just said...9:15 little gym and then nothing else was written down for the day. i did do more than just that though. i am able to embrace doing "less" as i lived that for most of this past year. not many plans. not a long to do list. but instead doing what i could and not feeling like i owed anyone an explanation for that. but cancer ends and then all of a sudden you are not fighting cancer anymore so you have the time and energy to get back into life and do what you love and what's life giving.

so your healthy. you have a little seven month old baby. find out you are sick. it's cancer. which is crazy. so you treat the cancer in your body. a few months later the cancer is done. yay. treatment worked. done and done. you celebrate. but then randomly every three months you have to think about cancer again. you do not have it. i keep saying to people i am living like i am cancer free, because i am cancer free. until someone tells me otherwise i do not live in a constant state of fear. i refuse to live in fear. i believe with every part of myself that in Christ we are free to live. really live. fear is gone. but i am having a hard time with that now. as my first follow-up appointment approaches i am thinking about cancer and the possibility of it coming back. it's messing with my heart and my head. i know lymphoma is a curable cancer. but i know people die from it too. i know the likelihood of it returning is a very small percentage. but so was the percentage that i would even get cancer in the first place. i get emails and read stories of people who are five, ten. twenty years cancer free. but then i also get emails from people whose cancer did return. its just a tough place to be. i know what is true. i believe i have a greater understand that my life is not my own than i ever have in my life. but i am scared. i am scared about cancer coming back. i do not want to do it again. will i always feel anxious about follow-up appointments? maybe and is that okay? or will i feel better after i have had a few...all clear check-ups. i am not sure. i am not totally sure how to live in this place. this new place of you did have cancer and now you don't...but cancer will always be in our story. i say that a lot. because its true. but i am discovering that i am saying that mostly in regards to how cancer changed us and how we grew and what we learned. the good stuff. not the reality that for the rest of my life i will circle cancer on a medical info sheet. and that if it was in my body once am i more susceptible to it returning? i feel like the answer is yes. i am not sure the stats. i hate those anyways. i am just seeing myself in new territory. a place i have never been. cancer free, yes. but figuring out how to not be consumed with fear in the midst of rejoicing that the cancer is gone. i am almost three months cancer free. can you believe it? i can't. but its true.

justin and i went out on saturday night for our anniversary. we sat across the table and talked about this past year and what has happened and how far we have come. i shared with him my fears about cancer. as i was working on this post before we went out for dinner. he looked at me with all the confidence in the world..."babe, it has never crossed my mind once that your cancer would come back."

alright babe, i am running with that. no more cancer for us

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we are busy celebrating/resting today...

because justin was "technically" out of town for our anniversary we decided to celebrate the big four years today. even though we did have dinner together on thursday. it was accompanied by the vast majority of young life staff in virignia. not necessarily romantic. but still great.

so its the perfect day for a guest post from my sister, becky. thank you for sharing your heart.

***To my dear sister Libby…I have written this in my head at least 10 times now, and no matter how hard I try to remember what I was thinking during those times, I can’t get it back, so I decided to just sit down and do it…so here it goes…I still remember how fast my heart was beating when you called that Monday back in July…at first it was just oh, I am getting this checked….then oh I need an ultra sound…and then my dr. wants to see me in his office as soon as I can get there, and to bring my husband…then lymphoma...then I have cancer...in those moments I felt the miles between us seem to grow…I hated that I couldn’t be there…because really we are just selfish and don’t like how it feels inside of us when we can’t be with the people we love, especially when they are hurting…August was a lot of just go, plans, calls, unknowns…I learned in that month that what you needed was a lot of the practical…you just needed things done, some things for you, and some you needed to do, so you felt you had some control over all the chaos and lack of control that cancer brings…I remember seeing you then back before treatment started and it was so hard to think, Libby has cancer because you were still the same beautiful sister I had always known…

During those fall months, I must admit I didn’t love you as well as you deserved, for those of you out there not knowing what to do, err on the side of just doing…I thought to much about what was right, what I should or shouldn’t do…that was dumb…just do…just love…just pray…just send cards…letters…gift cards…flowers…verses…just do…I remember wondering…am I calling too much or not enough??…I feared you would feel I was too overbearing or not interested enough, so I stopped guessing and just said, okay I will call when I want to call or talk, just like before cancer, and when you want to talk and can, you will, and when you can’t or weren’t up to it, then you wouldn’t…we talked about that and once we were on the same page I felt a lot more peace about my role in this…

I could write forever, but in interest of being respectful to readers I will try to be brief (for those of you who know me, that isn’t a gift of mine)…your 1^st week long over night summer camp experience, was about my 4^th, you were in tamarack and I was in blue spruce…we’d both gone without friends, and you were lonely and homesick (funny how Rockford seemed like hours away from home, despite it really being a mere 20 minutes)…the counselors let you hang with our cabin whenever possible, do you remember who was on my bunk, who loved you then…it was Erinn (vanden berg) jacques …back before any of us knew what God would do with YL in your lives…He introduced you to Erinn…through YL and your relationship with her, you met God in a knew way, and was born a ministry in your life, leading to adventures, showing Christ to young girls, and ultimately meeting Justin…I love thinking of this, being reminded of how far ahead of us God always is, He knows, he is there before we even see Him…your cancer has taught me that again…thank you…

I remember selfishly not liking that the Chesapeake community got to do the direct loving of you, Justin, and Ava…I was jealous and didn’t like that I couldn’t do that, yet through the distance from family, God rose up within a community to show the power of believers, so thank you Chesakpeake community (particularly YL people) for being the local “family” for the Ryders, that we as their family all wanted so desperately to be, I praised God then and praise God today for knowing all of this and preparing you all to serve my sister and her family…thank you

I am sorry that you hurt, I am sorry that you knew so much pain, but I can honestly say your grace and seriously no complaints attitude has changed my heart, I think I complained more about your cancer then you ever did…I hate cancer, I hated that port, I hated looking at it in your skin, I hated when your hair got thin, hated that you couldn’t play with Ava like you wanted to, but looking back I thank cancer for how it changed us all, by I am sorry that it caused you so much suffering…

I wish we could do play dates, I wish we could do dunkin together, I wish we could watch movies, talk until late in the night (face 2 face), do dinner parties, get pedicures, give you a hug, watch Ava explore her world, laugh at Justin being Justin, have a great bottle of wine (or even a cheap one from walmart), laugh, pray, be lazy on the couch, or go for a walk…but most of all what I have learned is that we don’t get all of our wishes, God hears us and He loves us, but He is in charge, and I praise Him for that…His purpose was to have you all go through this away from me (and the rest of the family), because that is it-it is His will and not ours be done…but I got the wish I wanted the most...I get to make more memories with my little sister, and that was my greatest wish and most heartfelt prayer…

PRAY…when you are not sure how to love on someone suffering with cancer, PRAY, all the time and everywhere, God is the ultimate healer…pray, He hears, He answers, not always how we want, but he does…and I am so grateful that He did answer our prayer for your healing…

I have said this before, but I say it now with even more conviction then on those prior occasions, “I never knew or imagined I could look up to my little sister this much, I want to be just like her when I grow up”…and today in 2011, those sentiments haven’t changed…I am proud to call you sister, friend, and fellow daughter of our amazing, healing, loving Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ…you are loved…forgive me for the mistakes I made…thank you for including me on your journey…I eagerly await what God has in store for you, Justin, & ava…

I love you, Becky

four years.

babe. remember this day? four years ago. you just called and woke me up to wish me a happy anniversary and you asked where we were four years ago today. you and cliff were getting ready to golf. he didn't even know if he needed his clubs to be right handed or left. that's is so funny to us. i was heading to breakfast and off to get all fancy for our wedding. i am so thankful you are my husband. now more than ever. lets never lose sight of what's important and what we are about and who we are in Christ. promise.

i love looking back. we were so young...and we are still pretty young. but certainly much stronger and wiser now i think.

it's pretty incredible to look back and see how much we have grown and fallen more in love over the past years. i think right now is the best its ever been. don't you think? it has not always been easy. but it's always been right. you and me. because we know we are both in this no matter what. marriage, graduate school, leaving the life we knew and moving from ky to va, new job for you and for me, loving students, traveling, moving, our first baby, cancer. those are some of the biggies. with lots of little moments in between that make us...us. i think we were given a gift that summer at rockbridge in 2005. we both never planned to be there and then everything changed. in one month. how the Lord brought us both together when neither of us were looking. it was the best surprise of my life. i am so thankful for that and for you.
i think we will celebrate things a little differently now. knowing what a real gift it is to have each other and ava. the three of us. our precious family.

happy four years...here's to many many more. we are just getting started.

if you are interested in a few more wedding pictures. look HERE & HERE

our story.

a few weeks ago a real sweet oncology nurse emailed me about sharing our story. she recently started the organization H.U.G.S (hands unite to give strength) whose goal is to create a community of “cancer survivors” who come together to help each other sustain hopefulness and optimism when there is uncertainty. love it. love everything that they are about and honored to share our story. thank you for asking us to be a part of what you all are doing.

read our story HERE.

mother's day and two miles.

you know how you sometimes create this "perfect" days in your head and often times you are disappointed when things do not seem to go as planned. but then. sometimes it actually happens. where it exceeds those seemingly unrealistic expectations you can create in your little head. well for me that day was sunday. my second mother's day and my best one to date. last year we got in a little fight and ate lunch at plaza azteca (if you live in chesapeake you can see why that may not be the most special mother's day lunch. but i chose it. i wanted that homemade guacamole they make at your table). but this year my sweet husband really got it. not because i need all this attention or gifts. i just wanted to be loved a little extra on this day and that happened and then some. let's be honest i had cancer this year so its cool to celebrate a little more this year.

i knew justin would come through. he's good like that. the details. the letters. going the extra mile. he has always been like that, but cancer changed him. deeply changed him. hopefully you caught a glimpse of his blog post and video (check it out). i knew he was up to something on saturday when he was working on his mac for a while. but i did not ask. its best not to ask. just in case "what they are up to" is a surprise for you. he got up and grabbed ava and we sat in bed as he read his blog post and all three of us watched the video. i cried. through all of it. but listening to him read...I thought about one thing all day yesterday. What if we didn't have this day? What if Ava didn't have this day? I am so thankful today, maybe more than ever, for God and for you. This may not be what he meant when he wrote that...but i thought about cancer and what if i had not made it. so instead he and ava would have celebrated this day a lot differently than we did yesterday. i cry because i get sad a little about cancer and then i cry harder because i am so thankful for how it changed me and how i love my husband my daughter so differently because of it. yesterday was just special. so very very special. i was emotional because of how thankful i am for life and for my family. it was so joyous. remembering the last moments before we met our sweet ava and how incredible labor and delivery was for us. not always the case i know. how close i felt to justin. we were a team and we had just welcomed a new little teammate. little ava suzanna. not so little. she was nine pounds. but little to us. gosh, that was not even a year and a half ago and how our life has changed. but the Lord knew we need her during cancer. His perfect timing. how thankful we are for it.

we celebrated our mother's day with church, ava took a three hour nap (thank you) so we could watch a movie on a rainy sunday. then the sun came out and ava woke up and we took the back roads to the beach and ate lunch on the water. there was a monster truck show on the boardwalk in virginia beach. not totally our vibe. but we enjoyed the ocean and the sand. ava is not entirely sure how she feels about sand so we are working on it. but we walked and we played on the beach. took the back roads home, gave ava a bath, and relaxed for the night. it was good. it was so so good. thank you justin for how well you love me and thank you ava for making me a mommy. i love it more than i knew was even possible.

happy mother's day a day late to all you momma's. thank you to my own mom for helping make me into the mother i am today.

quick side note. not a big deal maybe to some of you and that is fine. i have not really exercised in a while. since maybe before we got married and then became utterly inactive for the past seven months. but i have been exercising a little bit more now and i want to run in the nashville half marathon next year. so i would not say i am training or anything yet, but today i ran two miles! its underlined because for me that is a big deal. i have never really trained for anything in my life and i am seriously excited about this. not excited really for the running. i do not like to run. but to train. to really commit to something and do it. i realized today how weak minded i am. but thankfully i had a tv to watch as i ran on the treadmill. that helped distract me. but you have to start somewhere and today i started with two miles. only 11.1 to go. i got this.

last side note: on the video justin asked me to say something to ava. i responded with "she tricked us." first off i was heavily medicated. that's why i sounded so strange. but she tricked us because she was three days past her due date and the day before we had scheduled an induction for the next week because i was not progressing. but little did we know that ava was going to make her appearance the very next day. hence the trick. but it was a good one.

Surprise! Happy Mother's Day, from Ava & Me

Dear Libby, 

I thought about one thing all day yesterday. What if we didn't have this day? What if Ava didn't have this day? I am so thankful today, maybe more than ever, for God and for you. What a rescue! Yesterday I drove down ferrel parkway... The first time since our last chemo. I do not miss it. But I remember seeing your courage everyday on that drive, holding hands, and praying! For big things and small things. I am thankful to have Ava's Mom on this sweet day. I am thankful to have you.

God has given you this day as a gift. And I want to give you a gift as well. Before you had cancer, the moment that came to mind when I remembered being most proud of you was when you became a mother. Those moments are etched into my mind. Being by your side, seeing you sleep, wait, push, and fall in love with Ava as soon as you saw her. Remember it? The breathing, Ava's first cry, the music. It was wonderful. You displayed such courage, and such passion. You need to be reminded of that day! Click here for a Mother's Day Surprise Video.

You have been an incredible Mom to her. Ava has someone fighting for her. She has no idea how strong her Mom is, but she will. I will sit down with her someday, in front of this blog, and begin to explain the miracles that have happened in our lives. I am so thankful that you can sit and fill in the details.

Ava has someone to guide her, disciple her, talk to her, laugh with her, someone to color with, someone to talk to, someone to be firmly attached to, to swim with, someone to teach her about relationships, life, and love. On this Mother's Day we celebrate that! We celebrate you, and what God has done.

Happy Mother's Day my wife !!!!

hapi moder's dae - ava (Deeeesh !)

easter. a little late.

i have been meaning to post easter pictures for a while. i am finally doing it this morning before its way past easter and we are on to the next thing. easter is a big day. celebrating that our Jesus is risen and alive. 

we started this sunday morning off with a little easter basket, breakfast, stickers, and bubbles.

enjoy.

 special bunny cereal served in an easter egg. thanks roma she loved it.

 

 daddy reading her the story of easter. so there is no confusion. its actually not about bunnies and eggs. but fun to celebrate that way too.

 stickers. her new love. they are by far one of the less expensive ways to keep your child happy. they are a must have around our house.

 peeps on a stick. genius.

 determined to get those bubbles...

 got 'um.

 she loves a good scrunched nose.

 off to church. to celebrate.

  i mean who does not love a good family photo? well...ava sure doesn't.

 okay now we are good...

 and then were not.

check that nose on ava. i love it. great easter for us. sorry to be a sharing a couple weeks late.

quick team libby thing

angie. my dear friend has decided to blog about each team libby runner. a new runner or couple of runners each day. if you are interested in reading more about the runners...check out her blog. www.thirstyhearts.blogspot.com

amazing saturday here in chesapeake. i love that we are all in kitchen eating and drinking coffee together as a family. ava is drinking water. she just tried syrup on her blueberry waffle for the first time. 

pretty sure its a hit.