I didn't realize I had walked through it until I felt it on my arm. The thin, sticky, hair-like strand stretched and finally surrendered like a finish line ribbon around the winner's waist. I turned just in time to see a smallish spider reeling herself back into the web, her night's work undone by my forward motion. But I know who she is, this eight-legged spinstress – she'll get that web restrung.
***
Sometimes shit walks right through our lives and blasts a rocket-sized hole in all that fragile stuff we wish was permanent. And then what? What do we do? Stare at the hole and watch everything slackening around it, eyes filled up and brimming with why me and fuck this and I give up? Let those emotions sap and stun and paralyze?
I probably would.
But not Kim.
She's staring down cancer treatment for the third time, this beloved sister in-law of mine (scratch in-law – I love her so much she's blood). But she's not letting this thing walk all over her.
No.
She's got on her ass-kicking boots – black, heavy-duty, steel toed. Maybe her hands are shaking a little as she laces them up, but her fight is fueled strong by her faith and her will and her passion and her kids and her husband and parents and brothers (and sisters!) and friends.
She's taking ugly, good-for-nothing Cancer firmly by the ears and evicting it from her body and her life. And then she'll artfully knit over the torn places, colorful and beautiful and new.
You can do it, Kim.
We're all praying for you.
I love you.
