What April Brings

When April begins, a myriad of fond memories flood my mind. April is the month my little sister was born. We were the ‘A’ girls, born in the only months that start with ‘A’ (April and August). Lacey’s birthday usually coincides with the Masters golf tournament held the second weekend in April. My dad’s parents were the initial recipients of the coveted Masters’ badges and there is no place my dad would rather be during April than watching a rousing round of golf at the Augusta National Golf Course. Of course, the year Lacey was born, dad was tied to a television screen at our home in Springfield, Missouri, cursing his youngest child’s poor sense of timing.

Two years ago in early April, I have pictures of my mom’s trip to St. Louis to visit her only grandchild (along with her oldest daughter and son-in-law). We enjoyed an unplanned excursion to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm enough to remove our jackets. Tulips were at their peak, their brightly colored blooms waving majestically from long stems. Ben, my mom and I wandered the gardens in the bliss of spring, acutely unaware that our lives were about to change dramatically.

In August of that year, my mom was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer. She successfully navigated surgery and months of chemotherapy treatments to put cancer at bay for almost a year and a half. This April, we found out that mom’s cancer has returned. Additional testing proved that several areas in her abdomen house small clusters of cancer cells. Fortunately, this recurrence was caught prior to its invasion into her major organs, so there is hope that another round of chemotherapy will destroy her cancer.

Hope. We have hope. We express understandable emotion, but we carry rays of hope that she will eventually defeat this disease. Hope that shoots up from the ground on delicate green stems. Hope that sustains through the thawing, unpredictable season of rain and mud, and through upcoming summer storms. Hope that carries both memory and potential in spectacular display of spring flowers.

April brings hope and renewed life along with challenge and adversity. We continue along this journey together. Peace be with you during this season of transition.