When I was going through cancer treatments, I tried to visualize a happy place to get me through the procedures. I started off by thinking about a grassy green meadow, with a blue sky above, and maybe some yellow flowers dotted throughout the grass. That happy place usually lasted only about five seconds, and then I would be distracted. I didn’t mind watching the phlebotomist draw my blood or the nurse pumping chemotherapy into my vein. It was actually a fascinating process, once I got over the fact that I had cancer.
My cancer treatments were completed long before I had Lily and Emmy. When Lily was little, she spent more time in hospital waiting rooms than many people have, and it had nothing to do with me. Before she was two, my brother was in a motorcycle accident and was in the hospital and rehabilitation for six months. Ed’s mom was in and out of the hospital due to rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson’s disease. Then after twenty-five years, my own mother’s cancer was back with a vengeance.
It was a rough few years. I cried a lot. Lily and Emmy saw me cry a lot, and since they were so little, a toddler and a preschooler, they asked me why I was crying.
How do you explain the ache that you feel when your own mother dies? It was an ache I couldn’t bear to talk about. When the tears came, Ed would tell the girls, “Go make your mother feel better.” And they would come over to me, hug me and give me sweet baby kisses.
They are my happy place. Forget the green meadow with the yellow flowers and the blue sky. If I am with my daughters, I am happy.
There are times, however, when I need to get away from my children. It is nice to go to a conference or have a night away. Ever since we spent the night in this cabin in Talkeetna, Alaska, I’ve longed to go on a writing retreat. Wouldn’t this little cabin be the perfect happy place?
Whenever I do travel with Lily and Emmy, I always miss my babies. And I always know that as much as I enjoy being away, my happy place is waiting for me at home.
Where is your happy place and what does it look like? Thank you for inspiring the prompt this week, Tamara (Tamara Like Camera)!
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Spin Cycle prompts for the month of October:
{week of Oct. 13 – Conquer}
{week of Oct. 20 – At the ________ }
{week of Oct. 27 – Mask}
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