This morning I woke up with my favorite hymn in mind “It is Well with my Soul” and I couldn’t stop singing. I had attended church for the first time in months on Sunday, and of all the hymns we sang, that was one. The reverend spoke of finding peace in God when nothing else stands, in not always searching for a peaceful spot, but instead, looking to God as our peaceful spot.

I rarely do that anymore: I search for the quiet and serene in home, in my writing, with my friends and family, but not much in God. Driving to work, I began remembering what it was like to be driven home from Baltimore the morning, a Tuesday morning in fact, that Kevin passed almost exactly 20 months ago. I remember vividly not feeling good at leaving him there, all alone in that hospital with no one to care after him. I had barely left his side the entire time he was sick, constantly caring for his every need and wish. To leave him, to let him be alone, felt so very wrong.

It is an intense memory, one I try not to recall often because of the way it makes me feel: sick, alone, shameful. When someone dies in front of you, to leave them there, in the hands of someone else, knowing that the moment you step away, you will no longer have any new memories of them alive, it is so bitter, agonizing in fact. That day, and many times after, it was NOT well. It was horrific.

Today it is well, but that does not mean that when I recall that day I feel well about the events that took place in the past 2 years of my life or what happened to Kevin’s life. I do not know that I will ever feel particularly ‘well’ about his death. I move forward, I find a calm in my soul despite the pain, and I accept that this is it.

It is so hard to remember those times-the insanely bad ones that I almost cannot believe happened, that I want to deny, but that I feel too intensely to push from my memory. I, thankfully, do not recall this memory often, but it is one I will never forget, never release, but it is not how I want to remember Kevin-having to leave him that October Day in Baltimore.

I want it to be well with my soul, I want to see and feel the glory of happiness, and to wash the sad memories away without forgetting the lessons they taught me. I want to remember him, in his good days, in the times he made all of us laugh and smile, and remember him for the reasons that I am working so hard to make sure others to not have face his fate.

Help me remember him in the good: http://www.facebook.com/TeamSarcomaPA