A good friend said this to me the other night while we were catching up. I was telling her that I was ready to move on and forget that all this had ever happened. You see the last blood work numbers were stellar! Got the call a few days ago. All the Angry Liver Things have fallen into normal range.
In that conversation, she corrected me, there has been too much of a story to ever forget about it. Too much GOOD has come from this stint in the hospital and illness. A renewing of faith, a growth in the boy and me.
It reminds me of an old neighbor that I had, she survived two bouts with cancer and even had a breast removed...but didn’t tell people. I just don’t get that. She didn’t share anything and only accepted minimal help from those around her. She bottled up and just forgot that anything ever happened.
The story is what we learn from. The story makes us grow. It removes us from our comfort zone and into the realm of the unknown, which is where the most fun (and pain) comes from.
I am a bit (a lot) of an open book. I warn people and apologize for that, but sharing is what helps connect us silly humans. The boy isn’t nearly as open as me, and yet he lets that door be open just a bit more now than he ever has.
He has been brutally, jokingly honest about his sickness and hospital stay. In fact just last week he played the sick kid card! A fellow musician at school was bemoaning the loss of a solo and complaining about it not being fair. Discussions ensue amongst those in the room about auditions and how he could have tried for it, etc etc. Having enough of the excuses the boy says, If I can show up for an audition AND make it after just getting out the ICU then you have no room to talk. AND BAM. Conversation shut down. Other kid red faced, head down, walking out of the room. Other adults in a stunned silence and me cackling like a witch on Halloween. “Boy did you just play the sick kid card?” “Yep! And I am right, nobody is allowed to complain until they go in the hospital.”
It was a beautiful thing.
With “normal” numbers I feel a relief and weight off my shoulders. The worry has subsided, but the story will remain forever and always. 
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