It has been a decade since four planes were hijacked by terrorists. Ten years since the World Trade Center twin towers were collapsed, and the Pentagon was assaulted. It has also been ten years since Ethan got his last chemotherapy. Joel and I were lying in the empty patient bed in his hospital room watching the events of the morning unfold while Ethan was watching 'Mulan' for the umteenth time and had cytoxan running in to him for the last time.
At the time, I was emotionally numb, so strung out from the year plus of chemotherapy and radiation, the multiple hospitalizations and the non-existent white counts, the worry. The stress was constant and long-lasting and I just couldn't feel any worse, despite being able to acknowledge that it was terrible and I would probably feel terrible later. Which I did. The one year anniversary of 9/11 I was in tears, feeling all the things I probably should have felt that day, minus the fear of the unknown, what might happen next. Since those early days I have been able to watch the passing anniversaries on a more even keel. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were upsetting and continue to remind me of bad solutions to bad problems, and I am unhappy about it, but not emotionally devastated.
So what now? Now is better. I am able to feel real joy about having a 17 year old boy, someone who survived what would have been unsurvivable 20 years ago and I feel less pain that it happened to him.
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