Chapter 1: Part 11

Continued from part 10
On the third morning after the surgery I awoke very early and something crystallized in my consciousness. From the time we learned we were dealing with cancer, I had been hearing that little voice inside telling me that this illness was the most important lesson I would learn in this lifetime and I had a chance to make it a positive and strong time for us both. I was finally listening. We weren't going to quit. I didn't know what was going to happen but we weren't going to wait for someone else to fix this. We had to do something on our own.

I called our son, Scott in Vancouver. It didn't do much for his heart because western time was three hours behind us and he had been fast asleep.

"Cancel those funeral plans; we're going to fight this and we're going to win."

He sighed with relief. "You two have always been the leaders and I've been waiting for you to say something to give us hope." As we talked he began to sound better and promised to pass on the word to his brother Peter, who lived nearby. The Tennants were about to gear up for battle.

Later when I arrived at Hal's room I took his hand and declared,

"Sweetheart, I don't know how we will do this, but we're going to get through this and we're going to win."

He smiled and put a lot of chutzpah into his reply, "There was never any doubt in my mind."

We talked vaguely about how we would go about taming this intruder, absolutely clueless about what was involved. Once I remember interrupting this vein of thought to say,

"Strangely enough, I find the evenings okay without you, but I hurt so much in the mornings."

He looked steadily at me and said, "You've got to try to find a reason to get up every morning."

That was the only time he ever indicated that he might not survive this.
continued in part 12