The Next Step

As many of you know by now, Mike and I arrived in Palo Alto, CA this past Friday for my next travel nursing assignment which starts tomorrow morning. We spent the last three weeks driving across the country. Our trip went from: Lancaster to Pittsburgh to Chicago to Normal, IL to Waynesville, MO to Kansas City to Boulder to Arches National Park, UT to Bryce Canyon National Park, UT to Yosemite National Park, CA and finally, over 3,000 miles later, we made it to our final destination of Palo Alto! Well, our temporary 13 week final destination that is. 

I'm having so many mixed emotions as I prepare to start back to work tomorrow morning. Since early June I was off of work to take care of my dad, and after he passed away Mike and I stayed in Lancaster for another month. We wanted to take that time to be with my mom and to help give us time to figure out the next step for our lives.  It’s funny to think of taking the “next step”. The next step always meant planning a scan, getting surgery, recovering from surgery, taking medicine and waiting out the side effects, getting used to dialysis, getting past one bump, hitting the next bump, and getting over that one too...”one step at a time” we always said...all of this with hopes of healing and life at the end of the long road.  You never expect these things to happen to you.  Never.  I’ve had nightmares growing up that involved one of my parents finding out they had a terminal disease, but I would always wake up at the end of it and see my cozy room and comforting stuffed animals around me and I would know that my parents both lay asleep and healthy just down the hall. It’s hard to realize that you won’t wake up from this nightmare but that instead you have to adapt and find a way to live with the knowledge of what has happened to you and your family and one of the people you love more then anything. 

Over the last few weeks while traveling out west I have had a lot of time to think and attempt to start processing all that we have been through. I have definitely had my highs and lows along the way. I have felt such extreme sadness in many different ways as I have started processing the death of my dad. Leaving Lancaster and moving forward without him here has been one of the most difficult things I have had to do. Reaching California only intensified the finality of all that has happened. My dad is gone, and now it is that much more real. But on the other side, I have also had moments where I’ve felt closer to God after witnessing so much of the beautiful, mind-blowing creation that is out there before us to enjoy and stand amazed in. The splendor of these breath taking sights is more then I could ever have imagined, and there I was face to face with a world that was so far beyond me as a human being. I am still stuck asking questions like “why did this happen to my dad?” and “how could I have done something differently to keep him alive?” but I also found myself wondering, how, in a world so full of pain and despair, can there still be so much beauty? Why do we deserve to have this incredible gift when the people that deserve it more than any of us are no longer here to experience it? What I came to conclude (if there ever is a conclusion to questions like these) is that these things exist here on this earth for us to stand in awe of now as a sort of prequel to what God has in store for us later. If we are blessed with these things now, then I can only begin to imagine what life beyond this one could be like.  As we drove across the country and hiked through three different national parks these past weeks, I wanted so badly to tell my dad what I was seeing and to hear his excitement for all that we were experiencing. While pushing myself beyond anything I have ever done before as we climbed up rocks to the tops of two of Yosemite’s waterfalls, I found myself talking out loud to dad and telling him to be there with me. To see what I was seeing. To be amazed at the majestic sights that lay there before me. I felt him with me, watching me, and imagined him there with his walking sticks and cute little Under Armor outfit on, and I smiled through the sweat and sore knees as we continued the climb to one of the greatest views I’ve ever seen. I have to believe that he could see it all and that what he sees every day is even greater then the beauty that is here on this earth. 

I am so grateful to have had this experience. It gave me and Mike a chance to reconnect with each other, with our friends and family, with God, with ourselves, and in a weird way with my dad.  I miss my dad so much, even more now then before, and I wish that I could hear his first day advice. Although we can't talk, I keep reminding myself of what he told me when he was in the hospital and I was taking care of kids with cancer while we were in Connecticut...He said, "I miss you, Kate, but it makes me so happy knowing you are there taking care of kids who are going through what I am. They need you." It's hard to think about taking care of anyone besides my dad right now, but as he inspired me to push on to the top of that mountain, he will also inspire me to stop and breathe, remember his encouraging words, and take this next step.