Elizabeth’s Story. My Keyboard.

In case you haven’t heard or read, our friend and teammate’s surgery was Wednesday morning. Below is a copy of her latest post, which hit me kinda hard.

It was only a few hours before I read her post when Elizabeth, Amy, and I a conversation about whether my late wife, Kinsey, should have done what Elizabeth was about to do. Given the sequence of events over a decade ago, I suppose we’ll never know.

At 4:28AM I texted Elizabeth, “Read your post and welled up, of course. Made me thing of our conversation today.#Kinsey :*) I loved it… You go.” I think she was supposed to check in at 5AM for an early surgery.

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon; She is resting well, and per a text from her husband, Stephen, she told the Doctor her pain is a 4 out of 10. Well done, Elizabeth, and shout out to your surgeon.

Here are her words, and a link to her other posts;

Reasons to Live
“Wow, I cannot believe tomorrow is almost here. I feel like it was only the other day that I was officially “posted” for surgery and I was announcing my decision to the world. To be honest, I am super excited and extremely nervous… not sure which emotion I have more of at the moment. Tomorrow morning I will wake up around 4:00, that is, if I can even sleep tonight and shower/get as ready as I am allowed and then Stephen and I will head to the hospital where I have to report at 5:30 AM!!! It was supposed to be 7 AM but they called me Monday and said the surgeons needed to move my surgery up, so 5:30 it is. Stephen isn’t thrilled about the time but I’ll get a couple additional hours of sleep that morning so I’ll be okay 😉 My surgery starts at 7:30 and I will hopefully be out midmorning with one surgery behind me!!

Since this journey began a lot in my life has been put into perspective… from family, friends and work… and I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. Growing up, after my mother passed away, I was so angry with God that I sometimes even questioned his existence. I mean, how could he take a young girl’s mother away? Or why? When I received my news last year I was again a slight bit angry with God; but that anger quickly turned to gratefulness as I realized that he had provided me with the knowledge and means to stay healthy. God truly does work in miraculous ways.

Stephen thinks it’s odd but with so many people getting pregnant and having babies recently I have started thinking about starting our own family. A dozen or so people have asked me why I am doing this surgery now and not waiting till our family is complete, I have breast fed, etc and the fact that I want to be there for my kids/to see them grow up/etc is the main reason. I don’t want something I can prevent to affect my family now or in the future. I don’t want my children to ever be angry or question God and his plan for their life. So, to my future children….
One day you will enter my life and that will be the happiest day of my life, right behind marrying your daddy, but for now I just dream about you. It will be many years, after you are born, before you fully understand the life I had growing up and the life I will always strive to give you till the day you die. Your biological grandmother, Karen, passed away when I was only a little girl and even though God put a another wonderful woman in my life to raise me I don’t want you to have to go through the emotions and anger I went through from losing my mom at such an early age. So tonight, as I say my prayers and try to get some sleep, I want you to know that tomorrow is happening because of you.

So, my journey begins tomorrow…”

After reading Elizabeth’s words you can see why this is a life reflective post for me. If you didn’t know me a decade or so ago, Kinsey was pregnant. There you go, and I will leave it at that.

The second pic above is all of us at happy hour a few days before Elizabeth’s appointment. We had a good time telling stories about our couple of years together, reminiscing real estate deals, and what our future looks like. Smiles all around!

I think we’re going to visit our bud later today, or at least hang out with Stephen for a bit. We can’t wait to see our fun and courageous teammate.

Franklin