About a year ago, I quietly stepped away from writing my blog. There wasn’t one big decision behind it. Life simply changed, and my priorities changed with it.
In February 2020, my husband, John, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was unexpected and marked the beginning of a journey neither of us could have imagined.
Shortly after his diagnosis, John wrote something in the middle of the night. As fear and uncertainty weighed heavily on him, he felt God speaking to him. He wrote about faith and about remembering that there is nothing God gives us that God cannot handle. He ended with words that guided him throughout the years of illness that followed:
“In the middle of the night, I was given the cure for this cancer…it’s called FAITH.”
John also wrote that even if cancer eventually took his life here on earth, it still could not beat him because he believed there was a better life waiting for him in heaven.
You can read what John wrote here:
For more than five years, cancer became part of our everyday lives. There were radiation treatments, PET scans, chemotherapy, countless doctor appointments, good news, difficult news, and always another option to research as we continued to hope and pray.
Over the past year, writing moved further and further down my list. I still enjoyed creating content and sharing little pieces of my life, but sitting down to write required something I didn’t have much of at the time- a clear mind.
What mattered most was helping John fight cancer.
As his wife, I stood beside him. I went to appointments, asked the doctors questions, helped him through treatments, and cared for him when he wasn’t feeling well. We fought this battle against cancer side by side.
I often joked that life was turning out exactly as we had promised each other at the altar on our wedding day: for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.
Toward the end, we were hoping John would be able to participate in a clinical trial. But after a fall that resulted in a broken hip, his body never recovered well enough for that to happen.
Even the circumstances surrounding his death became complicated. The coroner changed his death certificate twice while determining whether his death was caused by the fall or by the cancer.
For me, though, that question really didn’t matter.
Cancer may have changed the course of our lives, and the fall may have changed the course of his final weeks, but neither of those things will ever define his life.
John was so much more than the way he left this world.
Over the past month, I have received an incredible amount of love, kindness, and support. Messages have come from people I know personally, as well as from so many of you whom I have come to know through social media.
And you reminded me of something I had forgotten along the way: how much I truly enjoy this connection.
I miss writing.
I miss sharing fashion, beauty, cooking, travel, and all of the everyday things that make life interesting. And now, I’m ready to find out what my next chapter looks like.
For more than 46 years, so much of my life was “us.” Now I’m learning how to navigate life more independently and discover a little more about “me.”
The truth is, I’ve never really lived on my own. I didn’t go away to college, and I went straight from my childhood home into marriage and a life with my husband. So in many ways, this is completely new territory for me.
There are moments when I find myself questioning my identity and wondering, Who am I now?
Then there are other moments when I look at it differently as an opportunity to discover something new about myself, grow more independent, and see where this next chapter takes me.
There will still be fashion, travel, food, family, and all of the things that have always been part of A Two Drink Minimum. But there may also be conversations about navigating grief, starting over, cooking for one, finding my way, and learning how to move forward differently.
I’m excited to begin writing again because it is something I truly enjoy. And connecting with other women has been one of the greatest gifts that came from starting this blog with my daughter, Brittany.
So, after months of putting blog posts aside, here I am, back at my computer.
I don’t know exactly what this next chapter will look like. But I’m ready to discover it.
And I’m hoping that by sharing my stories, I can continue to inspire other women while, perhaps, inspiring myself along the way, too.
Cheers. 🥂
Nancy
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