myhusbandstumor:

What we fear isn’t here yet. It lies in the unknown, in the multitude of possibilities that could unfold, the endless permutations of the future laying in wait in the darkness ahead.

It’s not here. Not in this moment. Now is not scary, not with your hand in mine and our breath hanging in the air…

myhusbandstumor:

We finally met our nephew William, and even if he did inadvertently steal our baby name, we made it rain on him.

I think Spiderman is gonna like this guy. 

Favorite painting.

noraborealis:

bekahemily:

Flea and Anthony with their children (author unknown)

for my guy, who will be the ultimate dad. 

myhusbandstumor:

Let’s make it official, I guess? 

I’d decline. Looks like a tool.

noraborealis:

Mister Ladyfingers doing man shit with the manliest man we know. I’m helping.

myhusbandstumor:

Today, this Sk8ter Boi is 33. 

Here’s to many more birthdays where I wake you up too early just to say that I’m glad you’re alive. 

Love my little, much-younger wife.

myhusbandstumor:

There’s no doubt that Aaron is tougher than me.

During my (mainly embarrassing) athletic days, coaches would always talk about toughness, and I’d always nod emphatically while the words knocked around in my empty skull and I calculated the minutes until practice was over and I could talk my parents into a trip to the Wendy’s drive-thru.

I never stood much chance of being physically tough. It’s hard to be when you’re built like a small giraffe and walk like a foal testing out her new legs.

Not much has changed as I’ve gotten older. Physically, Aaron and I are about the same build (marriage doubled my wardrobe!) but I’ve complained more about my period than Aaron has about having cancer, and I’ve been known to use my monthly lady time  as a reason to pawn off household chores ON A GUY WHO TAKES CHEMO TEN NIGHTS A MONTH.

The end of every day results in the discovery of a new bruise, the product of walking into a table or a doorknob or tripping over some invisible object. “God!” Aaron will say as I undress, “what the hell happened to you?” That is the sexiness of married life, people. 

In the same way, I never had that mental toughness my coaches were always going on about. I got yellow cards in volleyball for having a filthy mouth and a bad attitude. I once threw a golf club only to have it bounce back and hit me in the face. I did once describe a “great game” of basketball in my 5th grade diary where our team lost 54-2 but that’s more delusion than tenacity.

Mentally, Aaron is tougher because he’s just…happier. More joyous. More peaceful. His childhood has way more real trauma than my nearly idyllic upbringing and yet I’m the one with a pile of diaries detailing decades of phobias and anxieties and ennui.

The bad things, you know, like cancer, just roll off of him.

But I’ve always bruised inside and out, and now I just bruise for both of us. Now, I feel things harder, right down to my bones, feel them for both of us even though I don’t need to.

It’s in direct contrast with the person I want to be: a superhuman pillar of strength who shrugs and winks in the face of cancer, who takes each day as it comes and doesn’t sweat the small stuff.

Sometimes, I can be. But only because all of these bruises have helped me toughen up.