Gifts...

It was one of those average nights that meander into days, into weeks, and then months. A rush of family responsibility: work, an away basketball game for our son, and a heck of trek to get there. It was before the Garmin and navigation-- mapquest gave you hope-- being female, the willingness to stop anywhere and anytime to ask for more directions, gave one providence. My daughter and I were to meet my husband in far east edge of nowhere to watch our sixteen year old son play in a basketball game. It was December in New England, dark o'clock, before the real cold, before Christmas.

And after cancer.

My husband had been diagnosed at 44 with cancer and had had surgical treatment six months prior to this night. I will never forget this night that we as a family had played out, as we had done so many nights before, as do many families all over the place. We were not special. But the night was. It was the night I realized that I had everything I wanted, and would ever want, within arms’ reach. I knew it; l felt it, and the striking clarity of the feeling I had that night will never leave me.

First, the less than heartfelt remembrances.

My son made not one, but two, flagrant fouls, missed more shots than he made, and did not return my subtle "keep trying” smile from the bench. My fourteen year old daughter spent most of the game alternating between sighing in much martyred boredom, and texting her friends. My aforementioned husband looked at me at seven o'clock and asked "What's the story on dinner?" Code for, “it doesn't matter that you worked all day, and drove all the way out here, I'm still holding out hope that you will feed me at nine o’clock.”

My husband made the heavy sound of defeat as we pulled into a nice restaurant. My kids, a rare sound of unified contentment. The place was crowded for a Thursday night, a beer, a glass of wine, two cokes, and a cozy booth later, and we were closing in on the end of a long day.

We then did not commence into meaningful family discussion. Hardly. The kids argued, albeit for once quietly, over whether my son was going to drive my daughter to the dance that coming weekend. My husband and I waxed poetic over the merits of buying a new snow blower, or fixing the one we had.

However, somewhere in the din and lull of a humming restaurant, the everyday conversation of my ordinary family; I found a startling moment of clarity about my life that took my breath away. My eyes started to well up.

My husband looked at me and said, “What’s the matter?”

“I’m happy, I’m happy and I know it,” I said.

“Do you want to clap your hands--stamp your feet?” he said, in between a long pull from his beer.

“No…maybe..” I said, and smiled.

“Well good,” he said, “Because I’m not buying a new snow blower.”

He winked at me, and my daughter put a pin in the moment by demanding to know when we were ever going to get home.

We had taken two cars. My son drove home with me, and I quickly searched for a radio station that did not scream the delights of murder and pornography. Being out in the sticks, we ended up with an oldies station playing the Everly Brothers classic: “Let it Be Me.”

I remember it from one of the many great songs my dad used to play, and began to sing along. Needless to say, my son did not join me. But rather, looked around in quick panic, as if fearing that one of his friends may have miraculously appeared in the backseat.

God bless the day I found you…

“This is a stupid, stupid song, just turn the radio off,” he groaned. “God….” Again, a glance at the back seat.

I want to stay around you…

“Ugh,” he lamented.

I looked at my son and said, “Someday you’ll know what it feels like to be in love with someone. Do you know how much I want that for you? You’ll understand the song then.”

“If I ever do love someone, I wouldn’t play them this lame song,” was his final commentary, before he plunged into a teenage sulk into which I refused to follow.

We drove home in a somewhat companionable silence. He found his ipod, and I thought again about why this night seemed so special.

Everyone has a different story about when they hear the word cancer connected to someone they love. We all react differently. When my husband was diagnosed with, what turned out, a treatable cancer, our lives changed. There was the fear, the plunge into treatment, and then, the even more fearful: a pounding awareness of the finite nature of our lives together.

Later still, came another realization. On that cold December night, a gift came in the form of a profound recognition and gratitude for the ordinary but extraordinary nature of my life. No, I was never going to paint like the next Picasso, but I had what I really needed in life, and that was the love of my family. And the stellar recognition of its value.

Without your sweet love, what would life be?

That quiet December night many months later, I realized I had it all, even if I would never paint like Picasso.