Reflections 11/28/2020: Ed surprised me with this candle-ized cake first thing this morning! Roo got in on the birthday song… (and a lick of frosting)! Birthdays always make me reminisce about the past year. Last year my birthday fell on Thanksgiving and I was so nauseated by an undiagnosed affliction that I could barely sit up at the table. Two months later, (and lots of wasted trips to the wrong kind of doctors), finally landed me in the ER where they zeroed in on the diagnosis of ovarian cancer stage 3C. Shockers to say the least. Lots of hell ahead. So 2020 has been a reenactment of Dante’s trip through the inferno of Hell. (We all kinda travelled that trek together in our own ways.) So sitting here, cancer free, Ed soloing “Happy Birthday,” and Roo (not Sassy) sitting by my side, I am spontaneously finding tears rolling down my cheeks. Trips through hell do that to you when you emerge (mostly) unscathed on the other side! Thank You God! If “Much-Afraid” found You faithful in her travels to the High Places, “Much-Cancer-Ridden” found You equally faithful to escort me to and through the Low Places! Today I sit here pain free, birthday cake in hand, and feeling all the more loved for this tumultuous journey.