It’s been a week of emotions.

A wonderful person lost her 2 year battle of cancer this past weekend. I worked with her until she had to go on disability to take care of herself. Holli was like no other person I had met. She had the most positive, hopeful, upbeat outlook. She just knew she was going to beat her cancer and at any time she would be back at work doing what she loved. Over the past two years, her battle had its ups and downs, but in the end, Holli passed away surrounded by her friends and family. She is no longer suffering and is now an angel looking over all of us who knew her.

This past week was also the start of some check-ups for Ron. It’s been 2 months since his 1st post-treatment scans came back clean. He has to continue to have check-ups to make sure everything is still looking good. It could be too easy to quickly believe that he is cancer-free, but you have to keep a bit of realism with you and remember that it takes a few years to be fully sure the cancer is gone.

I constantly find myself with an internal battle. You can’t live your life in fear, but you also can’t be naive. How do you balance the two? I am still working on figuring it out myself. I have good days and bad days. Mostly good, but sometimes you can’t help but worry. He is my love, my life, my future. What would I do without him?

Thursday was Holli’s memorial service. I knew I would be sad, because I was sad she was taken and I was sad for her 19 year old daughter. Man, I had no idea how I was going to be affected by attending that service. It hit way too close to home. To think it could have been Ron, because he was in some pretty shaky spots at times. I felt like a bus was sitting on my chest sitting there in the chapel. I did a really good job of keeping my tears to myself. I didn’t want to lose it. When the service was over, we decided to head home. I wasn’t in a place to be around others and I could sense that Ron wanted to go home too.

As soon as we got to the car I lost it. I can always be myself with Ron. He knew what was happening. He was dealing with his own demons as well, but he pushed that to the side to make sure I was ok. (One of the zillion reasons I love that man.) We both acknowledged we don’t know what tomorrow will hold and we are thankful for every moment we have together and with our family. Can’t ask for any more than that from anyone.

Here I am a day later. Tonight was the Relay for Life event for the American Cancer Society.

We signed up to participate weeks ago with the group at Ashlee and Christopher’s school. Really neat event. It’s an 18-hour walk. Teams have their members sign up for hour blocks. It goes all through the night. Each team has their tents set up and there are activities for all. To start the race, the first lap is only for survivors. All caregivers join the survivors for the second lap and afterwards, everyone else for that time block joins in. Great event. We decided that next year we are going to get our own team together and do the whole thing. Sleep-over and all. So get ready, we’ll be recruiting!!! The picture below shows Ron on the survivor lap. The young girl in the middle is in Ashlee’s class. Her name is Ebony and she is a one-year survivor.

So what have I learned this week? I have reminded myself that I am so grateful to be healthy, be with the man of my dreams and have the best friends and family. Some times it takes something big to slap you back to reality.

What I learned from Holli is to never give up, always keep hope and smile every day! Thank you Holli, you are missed!