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Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I’m on
Jesus take the wheel

I woke up this morning with this song stuck in my mind. It’s by Carrie Underwood and it’s very good advice. Let it go and Let God drive.

This morning started a pretty good day. Good enough to set aside my cane. Not quite good enough to dance the Macarena. But hey, the Macarena is the last decade’s dance anyway. So, no big loss. I played around with the kids and met the new neighbors that pulled in beside us. All the while thinking, “Hey I feel pretty good.”

I felt so normal that I even offered to take the sheets down to the laundry room. How’bout that? I stripped the five beds of sheets and pillowcases and had a kid shove them in a laundry bag. (Membership in the Club extends outward for some time, you know. Make a kid do what I don’t want to. I did that even before I got invaded.) Dan put the bag in the car and I drove it down the hill to the center of the park. I got out of the car and I still felt pretty normal. Maybe I woke up from a bad dream. Maybe the whole summer was just an episode of the twilight zone, you know. I loaded the sheets into the machine and turn to go back to the motorhome and it hit me.

Whew, I’m tired.

I drove back up the hill and plopped in my porch chair and thought again (this time out loud), “Whew, I’m tired.” Tired. I didn’t even do much. I am as tired as . . . as if . . . as if I had cancer or something. Ggeez. You would think I just finished five weeks of radiation. Oh, dern. It wasn’t a dream.

A half hour later, determine to stay normal, I drove back down to the laundry room and changed the sheets over to the dryer. When I was done with that, I knew I wouldn’t make it back down the hill again today.

“Jaymi!” I called to the eight year old on the playground outside the fluff-n-fold. “Keep an eye on these dryers. If one stops and the sheets aren’t dry drop another of these quarters in there.” I shoved a half handful of coins in her pocket.

“What do I do if they stop and the sheets are dry?” she hollered towards my retreating backside.

“Call me on the radio.”

When I got back to the motorhome, I told Dan that Jaymi would be calling him when the sheets were done. I handed him the walky-talky as I slid past on the way to my nap.

Membership may have it’s privileges, but it also has it’s drawbacks. I need to keep my projects small and doable in less than ten minutes. For instance, I shouldn’t have removed all my clothes from my cabinets to refold and rearrange all at once. The biggest problem I created with that project was that I covered my bed and I couldn’t take that nap I wanted after the laundry room ordeal. You live and learn.

Live. And Learn.

Never stop either.

There is a reason Dr. House wants to wait three weeks before my surgery. I have to remind myself of that. I have to do the other things that are even more important than laundry and cleaning. I need to take this time to play (gently) with my kids and hug them with too much love every chance I get. I have to sleep when I can and not feel guilty for it. I have to read and relax and write and rejoice in the fact the I have no control over my life.

“Jesus Take the Wheel, ’cause I can’t do this on my own.”

Good plan.

I overheard Brandi yesterday talking to another child on the playground. “That’s my mom. She walks with a cane because she has cancer and just finished her radiation. It’s in her bottom, but now her legs don’t work right for some reason.” The other girl said, “Oh” and they went back to playing. So simple. Adults tend to complicate everything. Kids just state the obvious.

I have cancer and I live in a motorhome with my three youngest children and my husband. I sometimes need a cane to get up and walk, and take naps in the middle of the day. No big deal. The rest of it is in God’s hands because I asked him to take the wheel. And that has made all the difference.

In the ninety-three days since I was told that I have cancer, my emotions have run the gambit. The highs were high and the lows were low. But today, today I am just me. Just mom. A tad more tired and a pinch more achy than before. But today . . .

Today I am happy to have been able to take the sheets to the laundry room and clean out my three small clothes cabinets.

Today, I am happy.

Go figure.

“Jesus take the wheel.”