Whining, Wine-ing & Winning

We were moving to Florida. The truck was packed, and the route was mapped out.

GPS glitches and all, we laughed our way through the chaos of starting over, with Kansas in the rearview.

New beginnings were straight ahead (sunshine, fresh air, and a future we were ready to meet).

We were already halfway into the next chapter, and then the phone rang.

Brain cancer.

Just like that, the road ahead disappeared.

Plans halted.

Boxes stayed packed.

Time stood still in the space between disbelief and heartbreak.

When cancer enters the story, nothing else matters the same way it did five minutes before.

Florida could wait, and so could fresh starts.

Dreams could sit quietly on the shelf while family could not.

So we stayed.

Not because it was easy, not because it was planned.

Because love doesn’t keep driving when someone you love needs you to stop.

Cancer rearranges everything.

It rewrites priorities.

It strips life down to what truly matters.

And in the middle of fear and uncertainty, you learn this:

Home isn’t where you were headed, home is where you are needed.

So we unpacked more than boxes.

We unpacked strength and unpacked courage we didn’t know we had.

We unpacked the kind of love that shows up and stays.

The road to Florida is still out there, but right now, love has us parked exactly where we belong.

And tonight, I wine-d down  grateful —

for the road we paused,

the love that held us here,

and the strength we didn’t know we carried.