Some Time Away

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve taken some time off from blog writing.  While my responsibilities at work contributed to my reduced personal time and online absence, the truth is I decided to simply take a break.  Some of it was writer’s block but a lot of it was to get away from melanoma for a while.

This started at the first of the month when I spent an amazing birthday weekend with family.  My dad and his wife headed on their annual migration from West Virginia to Florida and decided to spend a few days with my sister-in-law Debbie.  She lives a few hours from my house, so my family and I decided to join the others at Debbie’s place for a reunion of sorts.  You see, this was the first time the three of us (Dad, Debbie and I) have been together since Jeff’s death.

I had visited dad a few times either in WV or Florida…and we’ve visited with Debbie as well.  But this was our first gathering of the three.  In my over-analyzing thoughts, I wasn’t sure how the weekend would go.  Our last such gathering…at Jeff’s funeral…was anything but enjoyable.  Certainly memorable, but not for any reasons we wanted to remember.  How would things be this time?

Gladly, it was spectacular.  We laughed, we ate (Debbie cooked…yum!), we laughed some more.  Debbie and I shared inside jokes that Jeff and I would have shared…Dad and I shared a few melancholy moments talking about my mom and brother…but none of the times spent together felt like any type of memorial.  It was simply family time.  It was great.  It was cleansing.

The trip offered a bit of unexpected closure.  Despite enjoyable visits with each since Jeff’s passing, there was always the pretense that Jeff was no longer around.  There was almost a “let’s don’t discuss it” feel in the air.  And as a result, there was always a presence of melanoma.  Somehow, the black cancer would invade our time together and remind us that it had taken our loved one away.

During this trip, we all talked and laughed about Jeff...about ourselves…about family.  There was no feeling of an uninvited guest.  There was no melanoma in our midst. 

Ironically, my dad had been diagnosed with melanoma in situ a couple months earlier and had it removed.  He showed off the scar (although very difficult to see) on his scalp where the cancer was removed.  Perhaps this is why melanoma wasn’t present at our gathering.  Yes, melanoma had invaded our family and taken one of us away.  The next time it came, it was detected early and pushed away.  While we respected it for the danger that it is, we were no longer afraid of it.  And thus, it was not with us.

I embraced that feeling after leaving and decided not to drag melanoma along.  I still followed and shared stories on Facebook and tried to keep up with the goings on of friends in the melanoma community, but otherwise, I remained silent and simply kept melanoma off my mind for awhile.

My work and the holidays will most likely keep me busy and possibly away from the keyboard for a few more weeks, but I’ve decided to renew my fight against melanoma.  There is so much to do.  Not just for the memory of Jeff, but to protect my children, who will become tenacious teenagers this coming year.  Tanning bed legislation…sun safety education…fundraising events…  Yes, so much to do.

And so much to be thankful for.

Note: The photo I share in this piece is actually a photo of a photo I spotted in Debbie's bedroom.  It was taken back in 2000 or possibly earlier.  That's me on the left, Jeff in the middle, and Dad on the right.  This was one of the last Thanksgivings that we all spent together as my mom passed away in 2005 after my kids were born in 2002.