Sometimes a t-shirt and smiles are the best medicine

I was sick, very sick. So they came to cheer me up with a “Get Well Soon” T-shirt painted especially for me on my birthday.

It’s a lovely T-shirt, and I still have it. But the absolute joy that morning didn’t come from a shirt. It came from these happy faces and my wanting to spend the day with them, working on the projects they kept in their cubbies in the shop. Then measuring how much they had grown by having each stand at the door frame and me making a mark. But there wouldn’t be any fun mornings for me that summer in 2010 because I needed yet another radiation treatment for cancer and couldn’t be late for my ten o’clock sharp.

I’m glad I went to all my treatments. I’m happy I can still visit the shop with its door frame covered in marks. And I’m excited for these faces. They all look older now, but they all look the same. Nothing changes much when it all changes–together.