Two Years On: How My Awesome Wife Continues to Inspire Us

Two years to the day

I'll keep this short because it is a pretty emotional topic for me and for Moira, but tonight marks a special occasion.  Special, and happy in a holy-$#!*-you-did-it kind of way, but pretty bittersweet because it is a date I'd rather not have to remember at all. Today is exactly 2 years since Moira finished her long, challenging treatment for breast cancer. Just three months after Leo was born, on May 22, 2009, we received her diagnosis.Shortly thereafter she started months of chemo, two surgeries, and then 40 radiation treatments.  Today, January 4, is the day she walked out of that last radiation treatment. She is still cancer-free.  She has long, beautiful, curly brunette hair. She is working full-time for a great cause at getDowntown. She is the best friend I've ever had, and the best mom for Leo. She writes stories, drinks beer, and has fun.  She's my inspiration and daily companion. She was the reason I was able to finally change my life and the reason we're all here reading my blog today.  Thank God she's such a fighter.

Many of you know that I recently nominated Moira for a contest put on by one of our favorite Michigan companies, Stormy Kromer, called the "Living Legends" contest.  That nomination was picked as a finalist and I subsequently bugged my facebook friends to vote for her every day for a month. I thought maybe a new, updated adaptation from my nomination essay would be the right set of words to post today about the challenges she faced and what she accomplished. Please read on...

Moira appreciates hard work, doing things right, and not taking shortcuts.  She loves good rubber work boots, warm winter clothes, four-wheel drive in the snow, and although she wouldn’t hurt a fly herself, she respects and admires sportsmen who provide for their families in the same way their grandpas did.  She prefers library books to brand new ones, but prefers any book to reading from a computer screen. She writes her own stories. She likes handmade jewelry, organic produce, piles of leaves in the fall, the smell of a campfire, and most definitely prefers a good beer to a good wine.  She manages all of this while still maintaining a stylish, city girl beauty.  She’s a character, one of a kind.  It is easy to see why I love her so much.

It was that kind of character she called on to show the door to not one, not two, but three of the biggest challenges anyone has ever had to face, all at once.  You see, in early 2009 Moira was waddling around Ann Arbor, pregnant with our little guy, Leo.  Just a few days before her due date, her job disappeared.  It turns out her boss wasn’t totally honest about a few things and the economy hit them pretty hard, and Moira and her co-workers were out on the street.  A few days later Leo came…and it was a tough, tough day for all involved.  After an emergency c-section, though, mom and kiddo came out in great shape.  She was a first-time mom and was facing all those challenges without the benefit of experience.  Making it worse, I had to rely on her to keep the house in order while I worked extra hard to make ends meet for us. Paying the bills was a huge worry while she was out of work, so we made some changes, sold the truck, cancelled cable, and remembered what was important.

That alone would be enough for a lot of folks to throw in the towel, but 12 weeks later Moira was suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer.  It was a nasty, unusual kind of cancer.  I’m not sure what I thought people did when they were faced such a challenge, and I certainly didn’t know what people would do if they were unemployed, a new mom, and surviving cancer all at the same time.  You can find a book or two on any one of those life challenges, but Moira WROTE the book on facing them all at once.

How did we get through?  Practicality, perseverance, love, and prayer.  Moira never complained through lean weeks paying the bills, all-nighters with a crying newborn, or the chemotherapy, radiation, and the surgery that saved her life.  Not a word of complaint…she just woke up and punched in like beating cancer and raising Leo made up her unique job description. It was hard on her, hard on me, and hard on Leo, but here we are two years later and she is cancer-free, Leo is a healthy happy boy, and Moira is working again.  Today she’s a perfect match of grace, style, and rugged practicality, the girl I fell in love with.