Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
I am lying in bed with the windows open. My hair normally flat at this time of the year is full with fluff because of the 80 degrees and humidity. I am away from my homebound self for the first time in 3 1/2 years. Cancer treatment done for the moment and my bladder removed 5 months ago due to the damage done by cancer treatment. I have arrived here to our friends home in warm Florida and I am leaving tomorrow for a friends boat in the Caribbean. It has been a huge challenge emotionally to do this with a new bladder, immunocompromised and all the devices I need. Anxiety also has hitched a ride and has taken the most room in my suitcase. I have ridden the nights out vibrating wondering about my next run with cancer. There were other tests before I left that weren’t good. I feel like I am evaporating into the ether but then I have been listening to the bird sounds coming through the windows and feeling the soft warm air and I coexist in the place along with Anxiety. I then do some square breathing, 4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold and the static in my body softens for this moment and I just sense the vibration and resonance of the melodies. Birdsongs at daybreak. May you find many moments like these.
Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
What else? I am old, that is a surprise. Family gone, friends fading-what else? My pup died-have another and a kitty- I love them-not the same. Love and different manifestations- I am fortunate-as fear undergirded good habits- experiencing so mny dying when so young-clocked me in fear-and I responded by getting up-soon it will be different- I don't know when- but I am getting up. shared with appreciation.
Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
What a gift. The severed wing. The fish women in limbo. The gift to be given permission to vent by Molly. I often find myself thinking... What do I have to complain about... Well... I am about to turn 48 and I have a 4.5 year old, I am perimenopausal. Most of my 40s has been a significant struggle with my hormones due to fertility treatments starting at 40 years old. I lost 3 pregnancies in 2 years and eventually shifted to accepting a donor egg to fulfill me and my partners decision to be parents. The hormonal roller coaster makes me appear crazy, bitter, resentful and exhausted. My career has seemingly shit the bed. The voice of my former boss (who I considered a friend) looms large with the comment from 10 years ago about my career being over when I become a mother. I seem to be in this constant battle to not give up on myself. The world seems to constantly have a bunch of rules that do not work for women, mothers, parents (just reviewed the school schedule for kindergarten), older people, sick and ill people and those going through the change... however I will fight until the end to meet my purpose and not succumb to the smallness and endless gender stereotypes. I was referred to as a “girl” on my first day by a consultant that works for my organization. I said to someone a week ago... I am fighting the system with kindness and authenticity. I am crafting my own toughness with brutal honesty about what I need and not settling for other’s limitations of my abilities. I don’t want to be a bully to get ahead. I want to allow a place where people can be authentic with life struggles. I will talk about menopause at work. I will be exhausted. I will attempt to stop apologizing for something that is a natural process. I will not look for the fountain of youth. Last night, we tried to explain to our daughter why she would not have a baby sister or brother. She said I do want a baby sister. We explained that it was hard for us to get her here and she was enough for us. My OBGYN recommended not getting pregnant again after being diagnosed with preeclampsia at my induction. Frankie, you are enough. I love you❤️
All of my dearest friends have died. Many of the friends I’ve met along the way have died. I sometimes get frightened my children will go before me. I’m afraid of my own death. Will it be a long and painful illness or will I go quickly? I allow myself to feel all of this. It feels horrible, but there’s the flip side is I am , with intention, reconnecting with some of family, trying to make new friends and using the gift of storytelling as a gift to me and a legacy to family, friends and strangers that they are not alone. I want to leave a legacy of love, kindness and respect. Sometimes I get so mad at my dear friend, SD, because he disapp ars for months on end, but resurfaces and we see one another and have the most magical conversation nversations. He even shared with me that he was one of the voices in Jon’s symphony at Carnegie Hall, but didn’t go to the premiere. I said why? This was so important? He didn’t have enough money to buy and wear a presentable jacket. I got angry at him, was heartbroken he missed such a big event in his life, and then said “ no more hiding and missing out. Buy a used jacket that I will gift you so this never happens again. He shared he doesn’t want to hide anymore. I know that hiding because I did it for years, and it makes me mad I did it, but the flip side is I a m gifted with empathy, compassion and love when others are going thru their hiding.
Suleika I can’t take away your pain and fear, but I can support you and continuously tell you how enriched you’ve made my life and many others
"the melancholy had overtaken me to the point of exhaustion" . . . this week's prompt hit home! I found myself tearing up while reading both Suleika's and Molly's sharing. The one year anniversary of my daughter Anjelica's passing is like a magnifying glass. It amplifies everything that is painful, sad and scary in my life. I feel like I am walking under a perpetual storm cloud. The "what else" prompt is a perfect digging tool, a metaphorical shovel used to unearth our truths. It seems that everything sad or emotional in my life today gets blamed on the loss of my oldest daughter. So ask me what else? and I will tell you I worry day and night about my youngest daughter, her partner and their 18 month old baby as they struggle deeply to cope and survive. What else? My chronic Lyme disease was triggered by all the stress over the past two years. My adrenals are shot. I always have some level of pain and I can't physically fully function. What else? I haven't worked in two years and it is challenging to find a job. I feel discriminated against as an older woman (I am 61) and I also don't feel confident in my brain's ability to function well (ask me how many things I thoroughly forget!). What else? I worry about finances. What else? I struggle to remain positive and present, I see all the present moments slipping away, like sand between my fingers. What else? I don't know why I avoid my art room, I miss being there. I feel like all these "what else's" have led me down a path to a core truth . . . self-care. Our favorite thing to say to one another lately is "put your own oxygen mask on first!" I neglect myself and often all my worries are nothing but a huge distraction that take me away from eating well, doing my exercises, meditating, writing, etc. My melancholy is my higher self trying to get my attention. Trying to guide me back to my path, set me straight on my journey to fulfill my purpose here on this earthly plane. Thank you, Suleika, this was a good one! I absolutely feel better now! <3
Ah “scan and lab-xiety”. As a myeloma patient on “maintenance” infusions every four weeks, with labs every third cycle, and the attendant side effects, it is bittersweet. Being alive with a relatively tolerable and effective regimen (for now and a full pipeline of new treatments), I feel both anxious and burdened by side effects as well as blessed to be living in an age of treatments for a previously terminal and currently incurable cancer. There is a possible future. Trying to live in the present.
The scanxiety while on vacation/trip/getaway is so relatable. But I am away right now and it is not fair to have my worries sneak into the luggage, crawl into the carry on, slither into my head which was finally clearing! No one wants to be the patron saint of blood cancers but there you are, Suleika and I am beyond grateful that I am not the only one going through transplants and biopsies twice in the lifetime between a decade of remission. Venting and naming and breathing it through, I can do it because I am doing it. Not alone and not for nothing, the bird can shake me but not slow my desire to return to the water and swim some more.
Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
"It changes it's shape," How true. Sending so much love and compassion your way, the waiting and the anxiety is one of the hardest places to be ❤️ Now I'm going to go and pick up my pen and vent out some morning pages, get under the tingling anxiety I've felt rippling over my skin, find the root and let it out... Thanks for the reminder.
I've just been through a horrible bout tied up with scanxiety. About a month ago, with the chemo clearing out the worst of my ovarian cancer symptoms in my lung, I noticed that my breast tissue had changed. Next thing you knew my oncologist was taking me through the types and levels of aggressiveness of breast cancer. Based solely on the ultrasound (yes, I saw that black spot, too, that damaged tissue on the right) but before the biopsy. No tests went quickly.
When, on a Friday at 5 pm, I realized I'd have to wait until at least Monday morning for results, I was descending, with the sun, into a cold and heavy gloom. How would I get through the weekend? That night, though, I found myself dreaming I was in a waiting room, and someone handed me a report on which was the word "benign." I asked what it meant, and a woman told me, "Benign." I woke up stark upright-- benign? That word was not even in my vocabulary. No one had even said it was a possibility. After seven years of cancer?
Yet there it was, on Tuesday morning, and then after a second biopsy again, in total three times on three different tissue samples, "benign, benign, benign." My trajectory, that had veered one way, got back in its lane.
Unfortunately, the stress of all that gave me colitis, another new experience. I landed in the hospital while they ruled things out and put me on "bowel rest" with "supportive" fluids and IV magnesium and potassium. Then a week of the deepest fatigue (and relief) I have known. It has been more or less 3 weeks since I've gone out to do anything but doctor's appointments. Today we're going to a long-awaited film, finally at our local theater for a very limited run. We got 15 inches more snow this week, a great snowstorm that lived up to the hype, but also a reminder of how cold and long our winters are here in Minnesota. The pond and its banks are a solid sheet of white. I'm with Molly-- it is too cold to walk outside, with temperatures here in the teens. Better to stay inside with sun streaming through the windows warming me. My husband made me a new table for beside my recliner that can hold everything I need: my book, laptop, water, snacks. My niece and I have been exchanging playlists.
I don't think I'll even process what just happened. I just want to move forward, but I'll always know now that the word "benign" is at least a possibility. When I first shared (he was so confident!) about the suspected breast cancer, people started sending flowers and I thought, "Oh, no, I'm not going back to the beginning again." And now I feel like I've received a bouquet of pink helium balloons, each one with the word, in script, "benign" on it. They float near the ceiling of the room, bouncing with promise. When you get that news, you just move forward.
I am a firm believer now in giving space and time to feel the gloom. And then, I read that he had died...last August, and I just learned about it yesterday. He was my first kiss. A long-ago September, a school-girl crush whose excitement burst into a thousand little hearts upon his lips on mine. And now, he is dead. I shall never see him again. So why does it have to feel so utterly devastating now? I haven't seen him in about 30 years, and yet, learning this news, I am returned to that place over the ocean so far from today. To that moment, to the angst of longing, to his lovely face, all lost now from this Earth and existing only in my memory and no one else's. I am so alone at this moment now...alone with that moment, and I was hoping that writing it would ease my sorrow. But it does not. I am 14 again, 49 years after my kiss, our kiss...sometimes, the gloom in the gloaming lasts a long, long time.
the other night Stephen Colbert made the very wise comment, "It isn't easier to live in trust & vitality as opposed to fear & morbidity; it's just better." this prompt asking "what else?", "what else?", "what else?" helps get me back to trust & vitality ... as a white & quiet dawn, snow glistening like diamonds when touched by the morning sun. thank you. ♥
Thank you for sharing your heart and head space with us, Suleika. We’re here for the long haul. ♾️ Thank you for the invitation to vent. I just let my irritations and anxiety fall like rain. Whew! And thank you, writers and River, for loving on Sukeijka while she’s in the suspended place. Something tells me you are in the right place with the right people for this time. And your painting is staggering! Seriously Stunning!! What else - damn! I have to get up now!
Sending love, admiration, and compassion to you and everyone walking through deep waters right now.🫶🏾
I was riveted by every word of your post this morning. And the painting. I keep returning to it, pulling more out of it each time I look. I’m about to do morning pages and I am diving into the prompt which I so need.... I need to run my own anxiety and fear out on the page, bleed it dry.
I too feel suspended in between, this time not my health concerns but watching my 21 year old son struggling with life threatening addiction, knowing I can’t control his choices or actions. Life is life, with its sometimes terrifying surprises, things you would never wish on your worst enemy landing in your own lap. And moments like your gorgeously profound painting, where you don’t know if you are about to be swallowed or saved. Sometimes if feels like I am being asked to be eaten alive in order TO be saved.
This terror I feel for my only child, who suffers from my same disease (I’m sober 32 years) is not going anywhere soon, but being on solo retreat in Mexico, writing and allowing feelings to rise and fall, is indeed changing its shape.
Blessings to you on your own retreat. Grateful for your clear scan, and the beautiful friends and surroundings which keep pulling you into the now instead of the what could be. This is what I’m grateful here for too. The ocean, the sand, the sun, the pelicans, the organic fruit. They all bring me back to the present. To being able to breathe through the not knowing and the fear, and let the next moment come bearing gifts. And the next one after that.
Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
This resonated SO much with me. I’m reading just after sitting through home treatment of the night cramps plaguing my mother. I am going to my journal to log my “what else-s”. THANK YOU for sharing
Feb 26, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
In response to your comment about the new baby, the only piece of advice my dad ever gave me that was worthwhile was when I found out I was pregnant with our 3rd child. I wondered how we were going to afford another child. He said, "You always find a way to manage." And we did.
I am lying in bed with the windows open. My hair normally flat at this time of the year is full with fluff because of the 80 degrees and humidity. I am away from my homebound self for the first time in 3 1/2 years. Cancer treatment done for the moment and my bladder removed 5 months ago due to the damage done by cancer treatment. I have arrived here to our friends home in warm Florida and I am leaving tomorrow for a friends boat in the Caribbean. It has been a huge challenge emotionally to do this with a new bladder, immunocompromised and all the devices I need. Anxiety also has hitched a ride and has taken the most room in my suitcase. I have ridden the nights out vibrating wondering about my next run with cancer. There were other tests before I left that weren’t good. I feel like I am evaporating into the ether but then I have been listening to the bird sounds coming through the windows and feeling the soft warm air and I coexist in the place along with Anxiety. I then do some square breathing, 4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold and the static in my body softens for this moment and I just sense the vibration and resonance of the melodies. Birdsongs at daybreak. May you find many moments like these.
What else? I am old, that is a surprise. Family gone, friends fading-what else? My pup died-have another and a kitty- I love them-not the same. Love and different manifestations- I am fortunate-as fear undergirded good habits- experiencing so mny dying when so young-clocked me in fear-and I responded by getting up-soon it will be different- I don't know when- but I am getting up. shared with appreciation.
What a gift. The severed wing. The fish women in limbo. The gift to be given permission to vent by Molly. I often find myself thinking... What do I have to complain about... Well... I am about to turn 48 and I have a 4.5 year old, I am perimenopausal. Most of my 40s has been a significant struggle with my hormones due to fertility treatments starting at 40 years old. I lost 3 pregnancies in 2 years and eventually shifted to accepting a donor egg to fulfill me and my partners decision to be parents. The hormonal roller coaster makes me appear crazy, bitter, resentful and exhausted. My career has seemingly shit the bed. The voice of my former boss (who I considered a friend) looms large with the comment from 10 years ago about my career being over when I become a mother. I seem to be in this constant battle to not give up on myself. The world seems to constantly have a bunch of rules that do not work for women, mothers, parents (just reviewed the school schedule for kindergarten), older people, sick and ill people and those going through the change... however I will fight until the end to meet my purpose and not succumb to the smallness and endless gender stereotypes. I was referred to as a “girl” on my first day by a consultant that works for my organization. I said to someone a week ago... I am fighting the system with kindness and authenticity. I am crafting my own toughness with brutal honesty about what I need and not settling for other’s limitations of my abilities. I don’t want to be a bully to get ahead. I want to allow a place where people can be authentic with life struggles. I will talk about menopause at work. I will be exhausted. I will attempt to stop apologizing for something that is a natural process. I will not look for the fountain of youth. Last night, we tried to explain to our daughter why she would not have a baby sister or brother. She said I do want a baby sister. We explained that it was hard for us to get her here and she was enough for us. My OBGYN recommended not getting pregnant again after being diagnosed with preeclampsia at my induction. Frankie, you are enough. I love you❤️
All of my dearest friends have died. Many of the friends I’ve met along the way have died. I sometimes get frightened my children will go before me. I’m afraid of my own death. Will it be a long and painful illness or will I go quickly? I allow myself to feel all of this. It feels horrible, but there’s the flip side is I am , with intention, reconnecting with some of family, trying to make new friends and using the gift of storytelling as a gift to me and a legacy to family, friends and strangers that they are not alone. I want to leave a legacy of love, kindness and respect. Sometimes I get so mad at my dear friend, SD, because he disapp ars for months on end, but resurfaces and we see one another and have the most magical conversation nversations. He even shared with me that he was one of the voices in Jon’s symphony at Carnegie Hall, but didn’t go to the premiere. I said why? This was so important? He didn’t have enough money to buy and wear a presentable jacket. I got angry at him, was heartbroken he missed such a big event in his life, and then said “ no more hiding and missing out. Buy a used jacket that I will gift you so this never happens again. He shared he doesn’t want to hide anymore. I know that hiding because I did it for years, and it makes me mad I did it, but the flip side is I a m gifted with empathy, compassion and love when others are going thru their hiding.
Suleika I can’t take away your pain and fear, but I can support you and continuously tell you how enriched you’ve made my life and many others
"the melancholy had overtaken me to the point of exhaustion" . . . this week's prompt hit home! I found myself tearing up while reading both Suleika's and Molly's sharing. The one year anniversary of my daughter Anjelica's passing is like a magnifying glass. It amplifies everything that is painful, sad and scary in my life. I feel like I am walking under a perpetual storm cloud. The "what else" prompt is a perfect digging tool, a metaphorical shovel used to unearth our truths. It seems that everything sad or emotional in my life today gets blamed on the loss of my oldest daughter. So ask me what else? and I will tell you I worry day and night about my youngest daughter, her partner and their 18 month old baby as they struggle deeply to cope and survive. What else? My chronic Lyme disease was triggered by all the stress over the past two years. My adrenals are shot. I always have some level of pain and I can't physically fully function. What else? I haven't worked in two years and it is challenging to find a job. I feel discriminated against as an older woman (I am 61) and I also don't feel confident in my brain's ability to function well (ask me how many things I thoroughly forget!). What else? I worry about finances. What else? I struggle to remain positive and present, I see all the present moments slipping away, like sand between my fingers. What else? I don't know why I avoid my art room, I miss being there. I feel like all these "what else's" have led me down a path to a core truth . . . self-care. Our favorite thing to say to one another lately is "put your own oxygen mask on first!" I neglect myself and often all my worries are nothing but a huge distraction that take me away from eating well, doing my exercises, meditating, writing, etc. My melancholy is my higher self trying to get my attention. Trying to guide me back to my path, set me straight on my journey to fulfill my purpose here on this earthly plane. Thank you, Suleika, this was a good one! I absolutely feel better now! <3
Ah “scan and lab-xiety”. As a myeloma patient on “maintenance” infusions every four weeks, with labs every third cycle, and the attendant side effects, it is bittersweet. Being alive with a relatively tolerable and effective regimen (for now and a full pipeline of new treatments), I feel both anxious and burdened by side effects as well as blessed to be living in an age of treatments for a previously terminal and currently incurable cancer. There is a possible future. Trying to live in the present.
The scanxiety while on vacation/trip/getaway is so relatable. But I am away right now and it is not fair to have my worries sneak into the luggage, crawl into the carry on, slither into my head which was finally clearing! No one wants to be the patron saint of blood cancers but there you are, Suleika and I am beyond grateful that I am not the only one going through transplants and biopsies twice in the lifetime between a decade of remission. Venting and naming and breathing it through, I can do it because I am doing it. Not alone and not for nothing, the bird can shake me but not slow my desire to return to the water and swim some more.
"It changes it's shape," How true. Sending so much love and compassion your way, the waiting and the anxiety is one of the hardest places to be ❤️ Now I'm going to go and pick up my pen and vent out some morning pages, get under the tingling anxiety I've felt rippling over my skin, find the root and let it out... Thanks for the reminder.
I've just been through a horrible bout tied up with scanxiety. About a month ago, with the chemo clearing out the worst of my ovarian cancer symptoms in my lung, I noticed that my breast tissue had changed. Next thing you knew my oncologist was taking me through the types and levels of aggressiveness of breast cancer. Based solely on the ultrasound (yes, I saw that black spot, too, that damaged tissue on the right) but before the biopsy. No tests went quickly.
When, on a Friday at 5 pm, I realized I'd have to wait until at least Monday morning for results, I was descending, with the sun, into a cold and heavy gloom. How would I get through the weekend? That night, though, I found myself dreaming I was in a waiting room, and someone handed me a report on which was the word "benign." I asked what it meant, and a woman told me, "Benign." I woke up stark upright-- benign? That word was not even in my vocabulary. No one had even said it was a possibility. After seven years of cancer?
Yet there it was, on Tuesday morning, and then after a second biopsy again, in total three times on three different tissue samples, "benign, benign, benign." My trajectory, that had veered one way, got back in its lane.
Unfortunately, the stress of all that gave me colitis, another new experience. I landed in the hospital while they ruled things out and put me on "bowel rest" with "supportive" fluids and IV magnesium and potassium. Then a week of the deepest fatigue (and relief) I have known. It has been more or less 3 weeks since I've gone out to do anything but doctor's appointments. Today we're going to a long-awaited film, finally at our local theater for a very limited run. We got 15 inches more snow this week, a great snowstorm that lived up to the hype, but also a reminder of how cold and long our winters are here in Minnesota. The pond and its banks are a solid sheet of white. I'm with Molly-- it is too cold to walk outside, with temperatures here in the teens. Better to stay inside with sun streaming through the windows warming me. My husband made me a new table for beside my recliner that can hold everything I need: my book, laptop, water, snacks. My niece and I have been exchanging playlists.
I don't think I'll even process what just happened. I just want to move forward, but I'll always know now that the word "benign" is at least a possibility. When I first shared (he was so confident!) about the suspected breast cancer, people started sending flowers and I thought, "Oh, no, I'm not going back to the beginning again." And now I feel like I've received a bouquet of pink helium balloons, each one with the word, in script, "benign" on it. They float near the ceiling of the room, bouncing with promise. When you get that news, you just move forward.
I am a firm believer now in giving space and time to feel the gloom. And then, I read that he had died...last August, and I just learned about it yesterday. He was my first kiss. A long-ago September, a school-girl crush whose excitement burst into a thousand little hearts upon his lips on mine. And now, he is dead. I shall never see him again. So why does it have to feel so utterly devastating now? I haven't seen him in about 30 years, and yet, learning this news, I am returned to that place over the ocean so far from today. To that moment, to the angst of longing, to his lovely face, all lost now from this Earth and existing only in my memory and no one else's. I am so alone at this moment now...alone with that moment, and I was hoping that writing it would ease my sorrow. But it does not. I am 14 again, 49 years after my kiss, our kiss...sometimes, the gloom in the gloaming lasts a long, long time.
the other night Stephen Colbert made the very wise comment, "It isn't easier to live in trust & vitality as opposed to fear & morbidity; it's just better." this prompt asking "what else?", "what else?", "what else?" helps get me back to trust & vitality ... as a white & quiet dawn, snow glistening like diamonds when touched by the morning sun. thank you. ♥
Thank you for sharing your heart and head space with us, Suleika. We’re here for the long haul. ♾️ Thank you for the invitation to vent. I just let my irritations and anxiety fall like rain. Whew! And thank you, writers and River, for loving on Sukeijka while she’s in the suspended place. Something tells me you are in the right place with the right people for this time. And your painting is staggering! Seriously Stunning!! What else - damn! I have to get up now!
Sending love, admiration, and compassion to you and everyone walking through deep waters right now.🫶🏾
What else?
On the precipice of 63
Trying to spend more time
anticipating than reminiscing.
What else?
Trying to keep the dreams
afloat
Not sunken in the detritus
of my life’s composting heap.
What else?
Finding passion again
when existing
seems to be
a check on the list
of things to do today.
I was riveted by every word of your post this morning. And the painting. I keep returning to it, pulling more out of it each time I look. I’m about to do morning pages and I am diving into the prompt which I so need.... I need to run my own anxiety and fear out on the page, bleed it dry.
I too feel suspended in between, this time not my health concerns but watching my 21 year old son struggling with life threatening addiction, knowing I can’t control his choices or actions. Life is life, with its sometimes terrifying surprises, things you would never wish on your worst enemy landing in your own lap. And moments like your gorgeously profound painting, where you don’t know if you are about to be swallowed or saved. Sometimes if feels like I am being asked to be eaten alive in order TO be saved.
This terror I feel for my only child, who suffers from my same disease (I’m sober 32 years) is not going anywhere soon, but being on solo retreat in Mexico, writing and allowing feelings to rise and fall, is indeed changing its shape.
Blessings to you on your own retreat. Grateful for your clear scan, and the beautiful friends and surroundings which keep pulling you into the now instead of the what could be. This is what I’m grateful here for too. The ocean, the sand, the sun, the pelicans, the organic fruit. They all bring me back to the present. To being able to breathe through the not knowing and the fear, and let the next moment come bearing gifts. And the next one after that.
This resonated SO much with me. I’m reading just after sitting through home treatment of the night cramps plaguing my mother. I am going to my journal to log my “what else-s”. THANK YOU for sharing
In response to your comment about the new baby, the only piece of advice my dad ever gave me that was worthwhile was when I found out I was pregnant with our 3rd child. I wondered how we were going to afford another child. He said, "You always find a way to manage." And we did.