Prayers

This is not the best photo, but I think you can see this really cool pair of socks to the left. They are prayer socks, knitted for me by my friend, KJ. She is a KNITTER, as are a few other people I know, and I really admire that. I tried to learn how to knit. It was not a success. I got very tense and my stitches did too. But I love to watch other people knit, and I actually find it very relaxing.

But the real point of this is to talk about prayer and how I know and can feel that many people have been praying and will continue to pray for me through this. My own prayers are usually of the informal type, just talking to God. Sometimes I just pour it all out and other times it is a bit more focused on things I am grateful for, people I am concerned about, and things I am trying to find strength to deal with. I do have a Rosary recording on my ipod and have found that to be very calming, too, and I love the community of praying together at Mass, but I was not raised to be a precise formal pray-er and that has been good for me.

It astounds me to reflect on the support system I have! In fact, my whole little nuclear family here on Patton Drive are so well cared for. Friends are sending their prayers and their concern for us out in so many ways, all intending the best for us in a successful surgery and recovery. Personally, I can just feel this. There's not much anxiety here lately. We've been having some fun with it (figuring out which things I can use the excuse "but I have a hole in my head" for and which situations where that isn't going to work ).

As surgery gets closer, I am (finally) seeing this now as part of the process of dealing with this diagnosis. Life has been going on the whole time, and with the exception of some serious napping I've been in it. Now it's time to take the next step which should lead to a life without pain and without medication. If there are complications along the way, I'll deal with them as I need to. I am really seeing how I can't worry about future things I cannot control. It would be impossible to write those words and truly mean them without the support and love that has been shown to me in the past many months.

Thank you all.