Meet Michaela

 Meet Michaela.

She is a young (27 years old) mom of 4 beautiful children. Matthew, 8
Faith, 7, Emily, 6 and Elijah, 2

I never got to REALLY get to know her.
I liked her, quite a bit. But circumstances got in the way of me getting able to form a real loving relationship with her.

2 years ago Michaela was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma. It started as a dark strange growth on the back of her calf.
When she had it checked out we were all stunned to hear the results.
She fought hard. HARD! She had thee best attitude about "kicking cancer's butt!"  
She received a test result after fighting for over a year and a half. "They found NED. (No Evidence of Disease"
It was over!
Then 2 months later she became extremely sick.
a month later after visiting doctors repeatedly with no answers, an MRI was finally done.
The result: a cluster of cancerous tumors behind her eyes.
2 weeks later she had become even more sick, she became incoherent. She was placed on in home hospice care.
2 weeks later Michaela lost her fight to cancer.
I hate cancer.
As I write this I remember a "nana" to my children who lost her battle to cancer after just a few short months.
And even more saddening is as I write this our church family is praying for another young mom of 4 who has been told nothing can be done about her cancer that has reached her brain. My heart aches.

I hate cancer.

The above picture is of one of the last times I saw her. I gave her those Monkey gifts for Christmas. For the past week I have replayed that moment in my mind about a thousand times. Her smile was contagious. Her laugh was too. She had an awesome sense of humor. She made fun of herself. She loved her babies. She was a good mom to her kids. She loved people.

Now her kids are separated and living in separate homes. Situations are not ideal. My heart is broken for all of them.

I do not know if she made the decision to follow Jesus or not. So I don't know where she is today. But I hope that when I get to Heaven I hope to see her there! I hope to find her drinking from a monkey cup and seeing her smile.

Anyhow, I just wanted to write this as a way of remembering her. So I can look back at her pictures often and be reminded of how fragile life really is. How every second counts.

This world seems to be falling apart. It seems at times there are no more seams holding it all together. Soon it will be a pile of string on the floor.

I am so thankful I have my Savior, Jesus Christ, to catch me before I hit the floor.

 

Good bye, Michaela :)