Acceptance, Strength, Gratitude

WE’D GONE TO ISRAEL TO VISIT the sites of the Holy Land in December 2018, taking our son and daughter, Matthew and Emily, then 27 and 24. We’d finished dinner one night, and I looked across the table at Alex. His coloring seemed off. “You feeling okay?” I asked.

“I’m good,” he said. Alex is not one to complain. But he admitted that he was having some stomach pains. I figured, okay, we were in a different country. Maybe it was something he ate. Later, back home in California, things were still not right. His doctor ran some tests, then some more. We weren’t so worried that we canceled a trip to New York. It was there, in our hotel, that we got a call from his doctor. “We need to see you as soon as you get back from your trip. We have some concerns.”

What did that mean? I pulled my mind back from the fear that was welling inside me. We didn’t