Fall approaches

You can feel it in the air. The crispness envelopes you, and the breeze slowly sways the trees. As you run, the fresh air whips you in the face, and it is cool. So cool that you wish you were beneath a comforter with the windows open, your face relishing the wind as it pushes through your bedroom.

Fall lurks.

And you welcome it.

I'm hitting fall. In fact, it's more like I'm diving into fall--the season of my life. Although, it is difficult to welcome it. I view life as the four seasons. My babies are in spring; my teenager is entering summer. And I am in fall, and I am scared. Scared that I may never experience winter.

Today I ran an 18-miler and have never felt better on a long run, runs that I generally dread. But today my legs carried me through with very little pain; my stomach felt otherwise. I had to stop once with the trots, and I hardly made it home before bolting to the bathroom. And then for the next five hours, I went. And went. And went some more. I could hardly eat. I developed a fever that lasted for two hours. And I dreamt about my impending ultrasound. I am scared of the fall. I am afraid that something terrible will be delivered to me on Wednesday, and I worry that I will not see my babies grow up. I wonder why I waited so long to have these girls, and I know I really did not have a choice if I wanted a family with my husband.

But the grief is enveloping me like the crisp wind that so took my breath away this morning at 5:30, when I watched black clouds skate across an orange sky and heard the wind as it whipped our bodies.

I am not sad at the prospect of losing a breast. If I do, it is God's will. But I pray that it not God's will to rob me of the golden opportunity to run with my friends, to share the love of my husband, to witness the growth of my baby girls from spring and into summer. Autumn has always been my favorite season; right now, it's not.