There are things you know. And things you can't know. And things you know despite being unable to know them. 

This is the thought that was replaying in my mind for all of Christmas, the first Christmas I was home with all my family in the past 4 years. There was something wrong. Mom wasn't well. And I knew, and my sister knew, though we couldn't really know. Her cancer was back. 

We were right. The worst kind of being right. She left my new house in Kansas City on Jan. 1, where she had traveled to help me move, and went straight to the ER with dad. There were spots in the scans.

Spots. I hate "spots." Despite all the medical language accessible in these moments there are "spots."

And now it begins. This road, this dark, shitty, stormy, road. Filled with cancer. And drugs. And pains. And in the best moments, hope. 

There are things you know, and things you wish you didn't know, to have a few more moments outside the storm.