Time. When that is all you want.

Some river in Glacier, everything
is SO beautiful!  While Utah
scorched in the 3 digits, we sat
at in the pleasant 70's and 80's.
Hmmm. Why don't we live here?!?

I lost a cancer friend this week.  I don't think she made it to her 2 year anniversary - she would have told our group.  She reached out to me immediately after her first zoom group meeting.  She had tons of questions and concerns, I had a few answers.  I helped her know that what she was thinking/feeling/anxious about was totally normal.  It was OK to be angry and grieve what won't be.  We became fast friends!

When we go in for a chemo infusion, there are always labs.  When they looked at her liver numbers, it was trouble.  They ran more tests and figured out that tumors had blocked the main bile duct, so she was out of options.  They gave her 2-4 weeks and sent her home on hospice.

We spent the last week in Montana, specifically Glacier National Park.  It was a bittersweet trip for me because that was something I had on my bucket list.  Wednesday was our 28th anniversary, it was a happy day.  That was the day we picked up a ton of rocks on a riverbank that are the Montana colors: red, green, black and everything in between.  We joked a lot about how silly it was to fill the back of the Pilot with rocks!  I'm putting said rocks in our park strip to make it a little more interesting.

Mat researched the "short" hikes along the Road to the Sun and to Lake McDonald.  I can hike downhill all day long, getting back up is another story.  I am so out of shape physically and emotionally.  I had to stop every 30-40 feet to let my heart slow down and catch my breath.  I apologized to Mat every time, he is always patient, supportive and helpful.  He would never be annoyed that I can't keep up with him. 

It was Sunday morning when I read the news that Tina had passed away.  We were driving through Idaho, I just looked at Mat and said, "Tina's gone".  He understood why I was so emotional.  I had a war in my head for a while, thinking about how unfair and wrong it is that people my age (and younger ... and older) die from this disease that I have, and are forced to mourn what will be left behind.  I stayed silent for a while, Mat understood why.

Sunday we drove 3 hours out of our way to fulfill another experience from my bucket list - biking the Hiawatha trail in eastern Idaho.  We couldn't get bikes sooner than that.  This was the same day I found out about Tina.  It's a 14 mile trail one way, "all downhill" is what I heard about it.  You bike through the dark tunnels that eventually open up to beautiful vistas of wilderness, then a ways down, another tunnel and another view point.  They have people that "sweep" the trail, do their own riding to check for people that need help, but also to make sure the last bikers make it out on time.

I'm glad we did it but it was another experience I really struggled with physically and emotionally.  The first two miles are through a completely dark, dripping wet and muddy train tunnel. Everyone had little lights on their bikes so you could see who was coming the other way, but I struggled to keep the bike from slipping on the mud.  All I can see is what I'm about to run over.  I was trying hard to keep the bike steady and avoid the small children coming at me. I was pretty uptight when we finally finished back where the trail started.  I was grateful to be in the sun again with our car close by, ready for loading our bikes to return them.

My sister has a better phone than mine, she caught
the Aurora the night before we got to her cabin in
northern Idaho.  We were anxiously watching the
apps, but they didn't give us a show in Montana. 

I wish we had the flexibility to move somewhere else.  Like northwest Montana, or Alaska, or Pacific NW, or any number of places! That was always a bucket list thing for me, to break out of Utah and explore other options.  We should have done it when it was feasible, when the kids were little.  It's hard to do when we depend on the steady job with great insurance, and a world class cancer hospital so close.  We'll continue traveling, we have a tropical adventure coming up in the fall.  Then we'll make more plans after that trip.  Mat is so good to me!  We've been through our fair share of trials, but we support each other and work together.  I love him more now than I could have 28 years ago!