I believe I was like the majority of young girls, dreaming of meeting my knight in shining armor.  I could have envisioned a million different scenarios in which I could have found my life now at 44  however my reality  is not even close to any of the scenarios that had danced across my imagination……ever. Please realize that the following in no way is me feeling sorry for myself because I actually feel like the most fortunate woman in the world.  I married my husband and father to our 3 amazing children 17 years ago 2.5 years after losing my fiancee Paul. Paul was a police officer and passed away suddenly from natural causes. My fear of ever having to experience such pain again made me extremely fearful of falling in love again. I had never felt such intense pain as I experienced when the doctor said he was gone.  I remember pleading with her to “change her mind” like she herself had made the decision. That same doctor would save my life a few days later when I had made the decision that I wasn’t interested in seeing another sunrise without him. When I realized I was in love again I was scared and the only reason I didn’t hightail it out of there was because I had decided that nothing could ever be as bad as what I had already experienced, feeling as though I could get on with life taking  comfort in knowing life will never hurt as bad as the past. I believed that until I found myself again in front of two doctors their words would again forever change and impact lives.  Our daughter had a brain tumor, our baby girl was fighting cancer.  I didn’t even know an 18-month-old child could face such a horror.  Life would never be the same. Everything unbalanced again I couldn’t convince myself again that there was some unwritten rule in the universe that one person would only have to face such pain once in a lifetime.

8 years ago I would never have believed that anything positive could come out of our daughter’s battle. Today however I feel (On my part) fortunate to have experienced it. The experience provided us with the opportunity to realize what was most important in life.  I am a mom, wife, and woman who hopes her experiences will in some small way to help other people struggling to understand that there will be better days and to help those trying to better understand someone else’s struggles.