I plopped indelicately....my irritation puffing in a small cloud—then settling back down around me. I told myself I was “regrouping” but truthfully...I was just letting in all the prickly feelings. It wasn’t anything. Really. A day that wasn’t well planned, toys all over the place, no one liked dinner. Again.... I defaulted to the mindless scroll of Facebook before slugging through the bedtime routine (and those inevitable complaints).

But there’s danger relying on Facebook to be mindless: sometimes it isn’t. Particularly when you’re part of a metastatic breast cancer community.

Rosa was part of my small group at our Inheritance of Hope retreat in Orlando. And she’s the third of that small group to be taken by metastatic breast in about a month. Rosa was stylish and creative, a photographer, and most of all the mom to two precious children. Her daughter is the same age as mine, a little fashionista and ballerina...she particularly connected with Quinn.

This never gets easier.

Suddenly my house of scattered LEGO blocks and bowls of uneaten beans felt less significant. I had a hard cry. Found some yoga for the kids on YouTube, and sent them to bed with kind words and kisses.

I resolved to make Sunday different. Better. For Rosa’s sake, and my own. I can’t ease the pain her family is feeling right now. And if (when?) it’s me, I will be equally helpless—more so, in fact—to comfort my own loved ones. The only thing in my control right now is creating the memories they’ll keep.

So I’d best be making some that don’t involve me nagging them to pick up toys!

I decided it would be fun to cook from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook (which the girls’ received as a birthday gift). We could do something fun and just maybe redeem dinner time....

We cooked all day. By which I mean: I cooked all day.

The kids dressed in their Gryffindor robes and ran around the house “buying cauldrons” and casting imaginary spells, all while enjoying the scrumptious smells that poured out of the kitchen like fog around Hogwarts.

For dinner, they were allowed to wear their robes. A rare treat, because laundry. We had meat pies with pumpkin pasties for dessert. We talked about all the silly things...owls and chocolate frogs and polyjuice potion and how it would be to grow up as a Weasley.

It was food therapy. It was togetherness. It was memory making. It was magic.
For Becky, Anneliese, and Rosa

Finding Magic in the Memories

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