Overload...

My brain has been so full lately. Does that make sense? I can't get my mind around everything I've been thinking... As I have said before, one reason blogging has been good for me is that it has encouraged me to write more. And when I write, I often tend to figure out what my brain is thinking. Kind of the reverse of what it should be doing, but oh well--since when was I normal??? (don't answer that)

Jeremy finished intern year this past week. It's hard to explain what that means to me. Let me see if I can try... We've been in school ever since we got married 8 years ago, and Jer's always been on the med school track so we knew from the beginning that this is what we were headed toward. Intern year (the first year of residency) has forever been this dark cloud looming overhead, always in our future, and always always worse than what we were currently going through. I had heard horror stories from friends who had been there and done that--weeks that lasted for 21 days because there was no weekend break anywhere in that time, nights and days and nights that were all strung together without any sleep in between, husbands falling asleep at the wheel on their way home from being on call and waking up just before they hit the car in front of them, kids finally giving up on setting the table to include dad because he hadn't been home for dinner in months... yes, these are all true stories. Hence, the understanding when I say I was not looking forward to this year. 

And, sad to say, it has been pretty much everything I dreaded, and more that I didn't ever even anticipate. It has honestly been the hardest year of my life. I'm sorry if you were hoping this would be a happy, peppy post--not tonight, folks... But there is a moral to this story. While it has been awful and frustrating and sleep-depriving and demoralizing and painful--we have made it through. We did it! Intern year does not hang over us anymore; it's done! We have learned important life lessons, we have seen sides of each other we hadn't seen before (and probably don't want to see again) but have also realized what good things we are capable of, and amazingly enough we have grown closer and deeper as a couple and as a family, even though we haven't seen nearly as much of each other as we had before...

So what's the point in telling you this? I was reading a story today about men who decided to do something hard, even though they knew what they were headed into--and it ended up being just as difficult as they thought, if not worse. But they knew that what they were doing was right, and it made the struggle more bearable. In the end, they accomplished what they had set out to do, they blessed others immeasurably along the way, and they came out of the experience better, stronger men than they could have ever seen in themselves.

Our struggle is still not over--I don't know that it will ever be. My grandfather lays in a hospital bed tonight, probably close to the end of a 12-year battle with renal cancer that has now spread to his entire body. He is in incredible amounts of pain, and his sweet wife of almost 60 years has to watch him deal with it. It almost seems too much to bear. They have lived such good lives--raised 5 wonderful children, loved, blessed and remembered 24 grandchildren and who-knows-how-many great-grandchildren. He has taught and served others throughout his entire life--in poor schools in Los Angeles and on the streets of New York City, he has shown love for and befriended so, so many. I think to myself--doesn't he deserve a break? For it all to come to this? Why must he suffer when he has been so good? 

I guess that's not the point. To struggle is to stretch. To stretch is to learn. To learn is to grow and become better, if we will choose it. And then we endure... Endure whatever trials come our way--because we know what we're doing is right and that makes the struggle more bearable. It doesn't take away the situation, but it makes us better people by dealing positively with it. And I guess that's the point...

If that's the case, Grandpa Norm is just about the best there is. I love you, Gramps.

And I still have a long way to go, but I know I can do it... because we got through intern year :o)

***UPDATE (7/8/08): My grandpa is doing better. He gets to come home from the hospital today. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone :o)