Rewriting My Life- a Year with Cancer

by Cheryl Merrick

Promising what was not mine to give,

I assured my preschool granddaughter

that I would be at her wedding someday,

till on my seventy first birthday,

I learned that I had cancer.

As I was given just three months to live,

all my dreams of spending the next

twenty years with my family,

dissolved as my tears washed away

my "script" for my life,

preparing me for a new and better "script".

Valentine

by Cheryl Merrick
Delicate cards made from

lacy romantic hopes

slowly lose their fragileness

as years of sharing,

supporting and growing

temper our love into

something strong enough 

to withstand even the gales

of catastrophic illness

and endure forever.

Written during our 50th year of marriage after a year fighting stage 3 ovarian cancer which is now in remission.