Going home is heavy, but God is still good

This year, like most, I was going home for the holidays. My teaching career offers the unique pleasure of having a winter break, and God has doubly blessed Caleb and me because we both chose teaching careers and therefore both get a full two weeks to recover from our stressful, rewarding, crazy wonderful jobs.

Earlier this school year, we were looking forward to much less travel for winter break since we recently moved to Seattle and are closer to my in-laws. When it came time to buy tickets though, a heavy thought crossed all of our minds and we decided to extend our stay in California from our regular 5-6 days to a full 12 days. This Christmas, short of a completely possible miracle of God, is my brother’s last. He will be losing a now four-year fight with cancer in the next several months.

To catch you up on every curve of this windy road would be overwhelming, but to summarize the journey may prove useful to you and me both. Writing helps me process my feelings and a summary makes the long story short. Let’s start from the beginning.

Sophomore year of college, I loved my job, I loved my classes, I started dating my now-husband, and I figured out more about who I wanted to be. Things were going about as perfect for me as they could have. But in February 2016, my mom called with the news that my brother received a positive diagnosis for two types of cancer, neither terminal but both requiring long hospital stays, chemotherapy, and surgery over the next year. Caleb was wonderful and supportive, even though he was very new to this whole relationship thing, and he was more than happy to drive me to the airport a couple of months later when I decided that going home in April was the right decision to make. 

Going home was heavy. My brother’s appearance was staggering. His physical health had already deteriorated and his face, body, and hair were noticeably thinned. His demeanor was more subdued. The cancers were very treatable, and even though chemotherapy over and surgeries sucked all my brother’s energy over the next several months, they did the job. After that he began the long road to recovery. 

By the time Caleb and I got married in July of 2017, his hair and beard had grown some, and he was healthy enough to stand at the altar with us as a groomsman. This time, going home was pure joy. It was so heartening to have this wedding and incredible, happy time of celebrating love and life and family. None of us knew then just how much this time was needed. God was allowing us to get a solid foundation of comfort, of hope, and of happiness because His plans were bigger than we imagined and different than we’d come to believe.

Things were looking better. Things were good. We were all happy. Ehren had enough strength to attend one class at community college again (a class he had to drop before because of the chemo, so this was a big win). Two solid months of no health issues, no surgeries, no concerns about future diagnoses. Then in September, his doctor suggested at CT scan, just to be absolutely sure the cancer was gone and there was nothing else to worry about. They found a mass in his lung that made the doctor nervous. He immediately ordered a biopsy and x-rays. 

He tested positive for Ewing’s sarcoma (one of the same cancers he’d previously had). I was at work when I received the news, and my supervisor on duty was gracious and supportive. I soon made plans for going home again, even though it would just be for a weekend to support and hug and cry and pray with my family. My mom very succinctly summed up our shock and initial reactions when she posted this in the Facebook group we created for our family to keep everyone who cared informed: “The cancer is back. He starts chemo on Monday. That’s all I have for now. Thank you for your prayers.”

That cancer was also treatable, and the doctor was optimistic. After that, I don’t remember how long we kept hoping since it’s been so many months now that we’ve known how this battle will end. The official terminal diagnosis was given in September 2019. We’ve been living with it for a while, and it didn’t come as a surprise, but going home for winter break this year was heavy. They were many somber talks of how to make these last six months of his life meaningful. Caleb connects with my brother more than most people I’ve ever met, so his input and influence were undeniably valuable.

Over the last few weeks, my brother created a bucket list, which included a few places to travel so he can catch some regional Pokemon, view one of the Union Pacific “Big Boy” trains, and visit his favorite video game studio in the UK. There’s often so little I can do to help my family since I live so far away, and sometimes there’s little others can do even if they live nearby, but here I saw an opportunity. Prayerfully, I created a fundraiser to help finance some of these travel plans, and God worked through our community in incredible ways. 

I don’t particularly like this plan of His, but I have to hold firmly to His promises, His Goodness, and His Love. I have to believe that He will continue to work in our lives and our desperate situations. Perhaps He will lead others to Christ because of our faithfulness in Him. Perhaps He will allow our situation to inspire, to encourage…to give hope to others. Lord knows we need that hope. Every one of us, not just those in my family. Every single person, believer or not, needs something to cling to. Something to motivate them to get out of bed. Something to fall back on, so they know this life is worthwhile.

I’ve been asked more than once over the last several years: “How do you do it? How do you get out of bed in the morning with all of this going on?” Because I have decided to let my hope be Jesus. To cling to His Word and His promises.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

Hebrews 10:23, NIV

“Unswervingly”. That means even when life goes haywire or things seem upside down, you hang on tight. I believe that God is faithful. I believe that God is good. I believe that His plans and His purposes are best. I wrote two years ago that I would still believe that if something goes wrong and my brother’s diagnosis turned out to be worse than we thought. I do. I wrote that I would still believe that even if my mom had to quit her job in order to take care of Ehren’s needs. I do. Always, always, always, I will still believe. I believed it when I lost my dad. I believed it when we got the first cancer diagnosis. I believe it now.

In just 24 hours of the fundraiser being live, we met our goal. Over the next week, we met it by 150%.

(If you feel led, you can support our family here gf.me/u/xbup7z)

Though these next few months will be my brother’s last, God made a way for us to treat him with so many adventures and happy memories. In the next few weeks, I’ll be going home so my brother and I can travel to the UK together and start checking off those bucket list items. God works in mysterious ways, and through all the twists and turns of this journey, He is still good.

Where is your hope? Where is your heart? Always, always, always, God is still good, my friends. Let Him be your hope.

With love and hope,

Susannah