overdue therapy.

This week has had me so deep in my own head I wasn't sure I'd ever surface.

Let's start with Monday. I went to see my friend's art show in Milledgeville. She is a graduating art major and an old "house-mate" of mine. Her mother has been fighting a brain tumor since she was in the 8th grade. Her mother was given 6 months at the time of diagnosis. Doctor's don't know everything.

Jess's artwork reflected her parents and siblings and much of their pain and heartache that came with losing the mother and wife they used to know and excepting the new one that could no longer take care of them or talk to them the way we expect our mothers to. Jess talked about the crap that we have to face in our daily lives and how the only hope is that one day we will all be made new. She made mention of her realization that even if God took her mother's cancer away and healed her, she would still face death some day. We will all face death someday. And only He can make us new.

However, what I could most relate to was when Jess thanked her dad. Her dad who helps her mother bath and dress everyday. Eat and get into her wheelchair. Her dad who helps her mother on and off the toilet and into the car. Her dad, whose entire life is forever changed because when he said, "until death do us part," he meant it. He meant it to his God and to his beloved wife.

I relate to this because "love" is what I learned the most about from my mother being sick. I've made mention of it before, but my senior year of high school my mom had a GI bleed that lead to acute organ failure and she was not supposed to make it out of Emory hospital. It's taken me years to realize what I learned from it all.

The main thing was the love of my father. Yes, my earthly one. Although I know it's the one Above him that deserves all the credit. Jess and I both stand in awe of the selfless love our fathers have had for our moms over the years. And I know it's only a small picture of what my heavenly Father has for me.

I watched my mother go from an upset stomach to a concentration camp looking human in 41 days in the ICU. I hardly ever saw my dad that semester. I hardly ever saw him because he went from work to the hospital everyday. And while I hid in my created business, he was caring for my mother daily. When my mom came home things got even harder. My dad was her nurse because I was too selfishly trapped in denial to be of any use. My mom had an ileostomy for months and it took her frail body close to a year to mostly recover. You never realize how much a mother does for you until she can't to it anymore.

I had a small piece of what Jess has experienced since the eighth grade. And while my mother made a full recovery, it seems that Jess's only will when she goes home.

Photography has a certain way of moving me. Differently than other art forms. It is a silent communicator, although sometimes it screams at you. There is something so powerful about a motionless picture on a gallery wall. Something that puts me so deep into my head...

...and that was only Monday.