The Weight of Wait

This morning my daughter Rosa asked me to braid her hair

As I brushed my fingers through thin, silky strands, I was transported to a time twenty years ago when she was two years old, when her hair was new and fine and so buttery soft it felt as if it would melt when touched.

Rosa is 22 now, but because of losing her hair during chemotherapy, the regrowth is new and baby soft. I twist the short, velvety pieces against her scalp, and remember the phone call that changed our lives forever.

In early November 2019 I had flown to Pittsburgh for a birthday celebration with friends. We were sitting around a dinner table at a lovely Italian restaurant, laughing and reminiscing, when my phone rang. It was Rosa, and she was crying.

I knew she hadn’t been feeling well, she’d been complaining of unusual fatigue. She was a cell and molecular biology major at the University of South Florida in Tampa and had a demanding course load. She was also an EMR working ambulance shifts, a volunteer at Moffitt Cancer Center, and an active member of a sorority. It was a lot, and I had been harping on her to slow down. I had attributed the fatigue to the fact that she was burning the proverbial candle from both ends. Just before I left for Pittsburgh, she was battling a reoccurring cold that she couldn’t seem to shake. She had visited the campus clinic thinking she may need an antibiotic, which was prescribed. The attending physician also ordered blood work and we were awaiting results.

When I look back, all the signs were there, they appeared like sparse, unrelated dots on a blank canvas…one here, one there, then months later another one showed up…far enough apart that a picture wasn’t obvious. And then the dots exploded, suddenly forming lines that edged toward a spirit-crushing truth.

I excused myself from the table and found a semi-quiet corner in the back of the restaurant’s small dining room. With the phone pressed against one ear and a finger plugging the other, I barely heard her words over the background chatter.

“Mom,” she said through a sob that caught in her throat, “I think I have cancer.”

I no longer heard the background noise, just the sound of Rosa’s unsteady voice.

She explained that her blood test results revealed that multiple values were “off” and that the doctor at the clinic suggested she see a hematologist as soon as possible. “Mom, I feel weaker every day.”

My initial reaction was to tell her to calm down and not jump to the worst possible conclusion…but as the words passed over my lips, I felt a lump gather in my throat. Something is wrong.

I took the first flight to Tampa, and as soon as I saw her, I knew there was a grim illness in her body. Life was drained from her eyes, encircled by dark shadows. She smiled at me with noticeable effort.

I assured her we were going to find out what was wrong. Please don’t let this be cancer.

A referral from our PCP was required to see a hematologist. The PCP couldn’t squeeze us in for two days. I watched Rosa grow weaker, she slept 18 out of 24 hours, waking in sweat-drenched clothes, and moaning from bone pain in her hip and chest. While we waited, I recorded the swift progression of every symptom in a little green notebook.

I wanted answers that wouldn’t materialize for five long agonizing weeks. I begged and pushed our way onto the schedules of one specialist after the next, sharing everything that was written in my little green notebook. The hematologist swore it was a gynecology issue. The gynecologist said it wasn’t a gynecological issue. The surgeon wouldn’t do a biopsy of the lumps in her groin or chest because she said they weren’t large enough – and the surgeon’s PA told us the pain in her body was tendonitis and the lump in her groin could be from an infection from a razor cut.  

Are you kidding me???

While we bounced from one doctor’s office to the next, hopeful for answers, Rosa’s body grew frail, the pain became unbearable even with the strongest medications. She was withering away, like a beautiful flower coming to the end of its existence. I felt so helpless, the weight of the wait felt unbearable, laying in bed next to her at night and pleading to God for an answer.

And finally, the answer came: Stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma.

My world went dark.

The answer we had been waiting on for weeks struck with the force of a wrecking ball, it knocked the oxygen right out of me, left me breathless and broken in a thousand pieces.  

Have you ever been in a holding pattern, desperately waiting on much-needed answers, weighed down with emotions that crippled you?

I have, and I can tell you that God is in the waiting. It was through God’s strength that I found hope and faith during this dark, intense time of waiting.

I learned three truths: God is near and will never abandon you, God loves you even when circumstances make you feel otherwise, and God can always be trusted – his wisdom and timing are beyond our comprehension.

Psalm 62:1 | I wait quietly before God, for my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken. (NLT)

Wanna pray?

God, it is so hard for our human minds to let go of the need to understand everything that happens in our lives and in the world around us, and it feels unbearable to wait when we desperately want answers. Remind us that wherever we are headed, you are already ahead of us, preparing the way. Help us to rest in the truth that you are with us wherever we go, and that your timing is always perfect.