March 11, 1998: “You have stage four bone cancer.” It all crashed down around us. We begged for the blue sky, and we longed to be able to be home and just sit and admire the grass again. I couldn’t walk. And the pain in my leg left me with nothing to say to anyone that would make any sort of sense. I begged in the depth of my soul for my heart to keep beating. I just wanted breath on my lips. I wanted immediately to do everything that I hadn’t even dreamed of yet. I wanted to run and dance and graduate and get married. I wanted birthday parties and to ride my bike. I wanted to fish and teach people about Jesus, and giggle, and cuddle with my daddy. And I wanted them to take the words back. I wanted the tragedy to go away, and I wanted to return to the life that I had. I promised myself then in the depths of me there, that I would live every day never forgetting how terribly I wanted life that day. I can’t not want life. None of us can’t not want life.

It’s all going to end someday. Please, just live it all now.

The tragedy will teach you, it’s all so much more beautiful than you let yourself know.

…because love wins.