Mopping the floors...

It's interesting how fast I seem to have forgotten how awful it was to go through chemo. Life just goes on and when I think of it, it seems like it was just a bad dream, a distant memory. It wasn't that long ago... but I'm glad that my body and mind seem to have moved on from that awful time.

It's funny though the things that have seemed to stick from that time. The one that I think of the most is mopping the floors. I hate mopping our floors. We have hardwood floors in the living room, kitchen, dinning area and down the hall and in the bathroom. That's a lot of floor that needs to be mopped on a regular basis. That was the first thing to got slid to the back burner when I was going through chemo. But it drove me nuts to have a dirty floor! I hated it! But I was too sick to do anything about it most of the time. You see... I'm a little picky about how the floors get mopped. I feel like they don't get really clean unless you get down on your hands and knees and mop with a bucket and rag.

One day my lovely sister in law came to town and hung out with me for the day. She lives clear across the country and it was so good to see her. She looked darling with her long red hair, blue pin stripped button up shirt with the snake skin skinny belt around it. And her adorable nude flats were so cute. I don't know why her outfit stands out in my mind so much... but the main point of it is that she looked so darling. We had a good day. Tru was gone to Utah with my sister so we went to Cafe Rio and had some yummy food (except for that I couldn't eat the vegetables... ). Then we went shopping, I hadn't been for what seemed like months... probably was. I was beyond exhausted when we got back home. Two outings in one day were pushing the limits for me.

Then came the magic words... "Is there anything that you want me to do while I'm here? Anything at all that I can do for you?" I can't believe that I even said it... but I did. "Could you please mop my floors?"... "Sure, where's your mop?"... "Well, there is a bucket and a rag..."

She got down in her cute pin stripped shirt and fancy jeans... and mopped the whole floor! Mopped the whole thing while I sat there on the couch about half dead. When I think about it now, I can't believe that I even asked her. My usual response to such things were usually, "Oh no... we're fine." But instead I asked her to mop the floors. And I remember laying there feeling funny for doing it, but knowing that I asked because I knew that she would. I knew that she wouldn't care that she was in her fancy jeans.

The reason I share this story is because it's now been almost a year since I've seen her, since she came and mopped my floors. There has not been a time that I have gotten out the old blue bucket and rag since then and have not thought of her. I think of her every time that I mop my floors. That is what I remember from that horrible time. Sarah and her cute snake skin belt... mopping my floors.

I wish that I could mop Sarah's floors for her right now. My cute sister in law is most likely not in the floor mopping mood anymore... she is expecting twin boys that will be born in a month or so. I love you Sarah. Thank you for teaching me such a valuable lesson that day, and engraving in my heart a desire to serve others like you did for me.

Thursday's come and go now I don't think at all about how Thursday was my chemo day. But mopping the floors, wiping down my kitchen cupboards, giving my son a bath, vacuuming out the couch, stripping the bed and washing the sheets have almost become sacred experiences for this mom. Because each are now blessed with a memory of someone who came and did that for me when I couldn't do it for myself.

That is what I remember, about going through chemo...