You Are Not Alone

What began as a normal week in February of 2009, quickly became the most shocking, devastating, heartbreaking week of our 10-year friendship.  Tami had been feeling quite ill and experiencing a tremendous amount of abdominal pain.  We went to Kaiser’s Urgent Care and they treated her for constipation and sent her home to drink some icky tasting stuff, the first of many, many more.  She followed the doctor’s orders, but it only brought about more cramping and pain, with no results.  The next night we ended up at the Kaiser ER, where they continued to treat her for constipation and sent her home.  I came home the next day from work and she was laying on the bathroom floor in excruciating pain.  I got her to the car and took her back to the ER.  This time, after explaining the last 3 days, the doctor decided to do a CT Scan.  While waiting for the scan and results, the doctor gave her Morphine…she had found a new best friend :-)

Several hours later, the ER doctor came back to the room and said that she had a tumor about 2.7 cm big surrounding her colon and that it was most likely cancer.  The surgeon would be coming to talk to her and she would be admitted to the hospital.  We looked at each other with this look of disbelief on our faces.  I can only imagine what she was thinking and feeling, as my heart just broke for her.  All I could think was, “After all she has been through in this life, cancer too.”  With each heartbreaking phone call made to her parents and her kids, I began to weep.  I grabbed her hand and told her that whatever was to come, however hard it might be, she would not be alone.  I would be there every step of the way. 

This reminds me of the story of Ruth and Naomi in the book of Ruth.  They portrayed beautiful examples of loyalty, friendship and commitment to each other and to God.  Naomi told her daughters-in-law to return to their mother’s house as there was nothing more she could offer them and they had been through enough with her.  Ruth clung to Naomi and refused to go.  Ruth said, “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.  The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”  In his book On the Anvil, Max Lucado writes, “Happy are those who have one companion, one relationship that is not based on looks or performance.  Every person is in need of at least one faithful friend, who will look her in the eyes and say, ‘I will never leave you.  The years may be cruel and the times may be hard, but I’ll be here.  I will never leave you’.”  I know in my heart, that if the roles were reversed, and I was the one with cancer, my best friend would have done the same for me.  Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to be a “Ruth” to Tami, it has forever changed my life.