Beautiful Day

Michele: "So, do you think it was fate that you two met?" This question. Man. It rocked us! What made this local news reporter ask us this particular question?? We were being casually interviewed in an elementary school cafeteria by a local news reporter when we heard this question for the first time. We had been doing Beautiful Day for 3 years and no one had ever asked us this question. How do we answer this? Leah was so quiet. Tearfully quiet. I answered, "Yeah...I guess so." We had really met because Leah's husband and I were classmates in a local leadership class. After a couple of meetings, he said, "You and my wife would get along." I guess because we seemed so similar. What you don't know is that Leah's husband is Dr. Che Miller, a General and Vascular Surgeon and I am a business owner, as well as, a mom and a wife. How could we have anything in common and plus.....I had plenty of friends. Leah: The first I had heard of Michele was when Che had suggested we go on a double date to Oklahoma City with a girl from his leadership class and her husband, Geoff. "Josh?" "Jeff?" "Goff?" I spent the thirty minutes prior to our date trying to create clever ways to remember how to pronounce his name correctly. I decided on "Joff" yes....yes....I can remember that that is pronounced Joff. I also made a mental note to further research on who names someone Geoff and pronounces it Joff. Che and I agreed that, in a pinch, during the evening that we would refer to Michele's husband as "captain", "chief" or “cowboy”. And no, I don’t want to talk about my husband’s brutally mispronounced name… We are talking about Geoff here. Michele: So, we go on a double date. It was perfect. We drove to OKC and ate at the a fondue restaurant called the Melting Pot; nothing breeds a new friendship like a meal of raw meat served on a platter right in front of you! We went to a traveling Broadway show, 9 to 5, great show. To my surprise, Dolly Parton did not play herself! I can honestly say, I liked Leah Miller very much and I could see us being great friends. But, meh. Leah: I remember us dropping them off at their house and I was a little sad the date was over. Michele was funny and crazy about her husband, two things I value in a girlfriend. We vowed to do this again. Michele: Somewhere between the cooking of the raw meat and a sunny fall day months later, a super dark cloud had fallen on my family. A terrible sickness had come for my momma. August 15, 2011 she was diagnosed with stage 4 Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. What is that?? Yall.....that is cancer. The only reason I knew it was cancer was because the business card the doctor left me said "Oncologist." For the record, I HATE capitalizing that name......Washington, D.C., Celine Dion, Potbelly Sandwiches....I get why they are capitalized....but non-hodgkin's lymphoma.....STUPID!!!! This began a one-year battle of fighting and healing and fighting and more healing and some days way more fighting than healing. My journey of looking up started here. Leah: As real life goes, Michele and I only saw each other in the parking lot of our girls' Pre-K school. Have I mentioned that our oldest kids are girls and both named Ava and both the same age? There was something real and cool happening between us in these short daily parking lot interactions. I remember the day, not the date, that Michele and I stood in that parking lot. Me, with 1 year old Ruby on my hip and her a bit more uncomfortable every day with baby Sam growing in her belly. Michele was headed to OKC to visit her mom in the hospital. The way she said it caught my attention. I knew there was more to this story than a simple trip to the hospital. These phrases struck me, "non-hodgskin's lymphoma...cancer.....momma is only 50." Admittedly, I went to my most reliable research on lymphoma. Tell me everyone remembers Charlie from Party of Five, he had lymphoma and he lived for many more seasons!!! So based on that medical data, I wanted to be hopeful. There was something in Michele's face that worried me. Weeks later and by total randomness Michele and I ended up going on the same pumpkin patch trip with our daughters. This day was much like our double date 5 months previous; we just had tons in common. My mom came along on this field trip to help with my little red-headed, 1 year old Ruby. A trip to the pumpkin patch with a 1 year old and a 4 year old is a two-man (I mean, woman) job. Michele: On this field trip is where I met Leah's mom, Debbie. I liked her very much and she seemed to hook onto me immediately, mostly because she was older and I was pregnant. This means neither one of us had to do anything we didn't want to do, like going into the stinky petting zoo. Debbie and I had plenty of time get to know each other. It was then I started realizing everyone was taking extra precautions around Debbie, saying things like, "You look so good!" and "Leah, I can't believe your mom is here." And then Leah said, "Mom, don't forget you can't pick her up!" I could tell I was missing something. Leah knew all about my mom and now something was up with her mom. I mentally relived some of those parking lot conversations.....nope...nope....she had said nothing. Leah: I remember exactly where I was standing on the pumpkin patch trip when Michele asked me, "Did something happen to your mom? What happened? I don't know anything." I admit I had been avoiding this topic for a month because it seemed unfair to put anything else on Michele. After all, we were barely friends and she was in a giant storm of her own. To further my transparency here, I was still having trouble talking about what had been going on with my own family. On this fall day though, my news was unavoidable. I said, "On September 15th, my mom had a heart attack at my house. It has been a long 6 weeks, but she is thankfully well on the road to recovery." I was trying to be gentle and upbeat with the delivery of this information. The truth is, September 15th at 3:15pm my life changed forever. My mom is young to me. She always has been. This lady has no quit in her. A power mom who has never needed sleep or down time. In my head, she will always be 36 years old. I’m not sure why, but I have her stuck at that age. But on September 15… Ugh. My perfectly healthy mom didn't just have a heart attack-- she fell over in front of me. At my house. In my kitchen. And her body did all the things a dying body does -- in my arms!!! Have you ever seen anything like that? I hadn't. I didn't know it yet but my journey of looking up started here. Michele: Did you see these dates? My tragedy and Leah's tragedy were exactly 30 days apart. WITH OUR MOMS! To this day, this is still shocking to me. Two girls who had met 5 months prior, wondering if they had anything in common found themselves standing in separate storms, but facing each other. For me, I had been sitting in this storm, by myself for 60 days. And now, Leah is here and she has been hit by a similar storm. Is she whispering "me too?" Leah: There was this pull of a tragedy between Michele and me. We had sensed it but had no idea what was really coming. This pull that was deeper than a love for raw meat and Dolly Parton shows. In my life I have noticed that a tragedy will always pull you towards something. Depression? Bitterness? Addiction? Denial? Jesus? A boob job? An unnatural urge for more spray tanning? There was this slow pulling on me. Something new was happening in me after what I saw happen to my mom. Something was happening for sure and, whatever it was, it was BRAND STINKING NEW! So I was being pulled.... Dragged.... Whatever.