A trip - and a life - interrupted

When we began to plan this trip to France last fall, my sister Sherri was in remission from the brain cancer that she had been fighting with impressive courage for several months. It was a giddy time for her - she could drive again, she was back at work, she was feeling good, looking good, seemingly back from the brink.

While we all knew that this cancer was about as serious as it gets - and would be the thing to eventually take her life - we all hoped, believed, prayed, wished, begged that she would be feeling good for at least a couple of more years.

So we all went on about our lives - mom going back to work, Jordan graduating from college, Chris trying to focus on his new job, and Eric and I planning a month-long trip to France with Chloe - something we'd talked about ever since we decided to try to have a baby together. We had enough miles to get all three of us here, we have an amazingly generous friend offering a free place to stay....allons y!

But then in December, Sherri's brain tumor made a reappearance. Since then, she has steadily grown weaker from the increased chemo, but was still working, still feeling pretty good. Well, she felt bad enough that Eric and I repeatedly questioned the timing of our trip, but good enough that we decided better now than later this year. Yet now, long story short, the cancer has suddenly gotten very, very aggressive. Last Thursday, the day we arrived in France, she had two grand maul seizures and is now in hospice care.

Her dramatically fast decline is almost impossible for me to accept, as I sit here with a view of the Pyrenees, wanting so badly to feel like everything is okay and that I'm on the dream trip of a lifetime. But I ache to be with her, to help support my mom, Jordan and Chris. We've shortened our trip by two weeks, taking the earliest possible flight that we can with our restricted tickets using miles. We'll fly directly to Dallas to spend some time with her, hopefully bring some Chloe-infused smiles to her face.

So now, I'm trying to enjoy the random sweet moments here - Chloe playing with a little French girl at the playground, the charming century-old carousel, David and Fernand's overwhelming generosity - but in my head I'm really several thousand miles away, at Sherri's bedside, trying to make her laugh, telling her how much I love her.