October 29, 2016 is a date seared into my memory, and there it will remain the rest of my days. Lately I have been measuring things as before and after that day. I look at photographs or recall events and my mind automatically places them in one of those two categories. After I had physically healed from the ectopic rupture, and during the time my mind was still grappling with our loss, our little family started its downward spiral into winter and all the sicknesses that ensued. For months on end we endured the clobber of illness after illness, until the very thought of another one made me tremble.

The weather is warmer now and sicknesses have started to wane and for the first time in seven months I can finally just breathe!

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12