Right after high school graduation, instead of immediately going to off to college, a friend and I bolted off to backpack Europe for three months. We zig-zagged Europe, moving from city to city and country to country. It was every bit as thrilling as it sounds.
I remember waking up to the sound of the loud train whistle early one morning. Barely awake, we stepped off our comfortable train car. There we were in Budapest, Hungary. The Iron Curtain of Communism literally had just fallen. And, there we were—aliens in a really foreign place.
Most everything looked different there. We didn’t understand anyone and we felt very out of place wherever we went. People would literally stop and watch us “the Americans” pass by – it was a really weird feeling. Bryan and I spent several days exploring the gray streets of Budapest. We were in a surreal reality.
I believe that experience helped prepare me for this incredibly difficult journey with Lindy. When we stepped off the train car of ‘normal life’ we found ourselves in a reality that very few can understand. Our lives now are so different, that it’s hard not to feel isolated. Everything that mattered before doesn’t now and everything that didn’t matter before matters now. It’s an upside down shake up; that’s the only way to describe it. Yet, reality calls; life for everyone else goes on as it did before. And so, we wander around; the aliens amongst you.
Lindy will make several trips to The University of Michigan in May for various scans and we’ll be meeting with her doctor. We’ll evaluate the progression of the cancer in her lungs and what to do next. Please pray for wisdom that we make the appropriate decisions for treatment. It’s an uneasy/high anxiety time for our family.
A special thank you to Pastor Scott VanOostendorp from First Reformed Church – Zeeland and Diane Wiersma LMSW, ACSW for walking with us and helping us sort everything out. We could not do it without you and your council.
