Returning

On March 24th, early Sunday morning, my nephew was diagnosed with leukemia.

News like that tears your life to shreds in a matter of minutes.

Fortunately, my nephew is young, and he is strong, and he is now in remission, though the road ahead will be long as he endures another round of chemotherapy, followed by more medical procedures and possibly more chemotherapy after that.

As his closest relatives, my husband and I are accompanying him on this journey, even as we continue to take care of my Mom in our home.

We are learning to juggle the many challenges that arise, and we are taking a day at a time as we move forward. Time for anything but managing the crisis and its impact on our life has been sparse for the past four or five weeks. Little by little, as the crisis decreases, we are able to return to some minimum level of normalcy.

Whatever that is.

Last weekend, for National Scrapbook Day, in between tending to my nephew and my mother, I was able to spend a few hours scrapbooking. It felt really good to feel like playing with paper and pretties again. For a few weeks, during the darkest moments of my nephew's health crisis, it felt like I'd never have the energy or interest to be creative again.

Creating does soothe me. Playing with colors and textures, telling the stories of happy memories, is a good antidote for the stress that has been so much a part of my every day for a very long time.

And there is more stress to come, but I hope that I will be able to sneak away to my craft table once in awhile, make things, and share them here on the blog.

During this terrible few weeks, so many people in my life have been supportive of me, including my scrappy friends. You all know who you are, and there aren't words to express the gratitude I feel for your thoughts and encouragement while I took care of my nephew and while I continue to help him on his healing journey.