"She looks so Good!?"

                Stage 4 medulloepithelioma cancer. Malignant tumors.  Very aggressive. Weeks to months to live. Those are the highlights that many of you know about P.  Now what does that look like? If you were like me, all I thought about was hospitals, ventilators, feeding tubes, grasping for breath, and crying…..a lot of crying.  Penelope’s diagnosis does not define her.  It never has, and it never will.  My little pigtail princess gives cancer a run for its money every single day. 

                My good friend Josh came by the other day and said something that really stuck with me.  “I sat in the car and prepared myself for what I thought was near the end.  I knew I had to be strong for you while I sat in here.”  We sort of looked at each other and he said, whether he remembers or not, “This isn’t the cancer I was imagining.”  This is exactly what I needed to hear.  In all this pain I carry in my heart from sun up to sun down, I forgot to notice something.  I forgot to notice how P is dealing with cancer.  I’ve been so blinded by how I am dealing with cancer that I haven’t really looked at how she is dealing with this hell. 

                The thing is, this is cancer. This is what it should look like. Strength….Courage…Faith.  She has more strength in that 17 pound body that I’ve ever thought about.  She doesn’t know it is courage, but she’s fighting something she can’t win, but it doesn’t bother her.  She has faith in all those around her.  She has faith that can’t be shaken.  Preacher Ritchey said it best.  “This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to faith.  It is going to be shaken, bent, crushed, and everything in between.  But it is ok, you will rise above that, because she will.”  There’s a lot of different things you can call it, I simply just call it Pigtails and Steel.

                P knows nothing but to fight.  She doesn’t see it as fighting, but just simply living.  Cancer took her legs, but she still will shake those pigtails like it is going out of style.  She will still move her arms to the best of her ability.  She will still Woo! Cuter than Rick Flair ever hoped for.  She will still smile ever so often because that’s just what she does.  She still looks at her mama when she brushes her teeth.  She will still look me in the eye when I say Daddy loves you before she goes to sleep at night.  It doesn’t matter if it is in a hospital bed, an MRI waiting room, an ambulance, her bff Harper’s boppy, or her favorite place the bean bag, Penelope just does what she wants when she wants.  She lives to live, not live to die.

                I’ve learned to explain her cancer, but not dwell on it.  I’ve learned to see things on the bucket list as her firsts, not her last.  I don’t mind questions about how she’s doing, it gives me an opportunity to talk about her.  I lost a piece of myself in all those hospital rooms and doctor’s offices; that is just what happens.  I have found myself when I walked out of them.  Her diagnosis doesn’t define her, it will also not define me.  I am not the father of a sick girl.  I am a father of Penelope.  She will make her own definition, so I’ll just keep writing until we figure out what that is.