Apparently, life is not supposed to be idyllic. Part of being 30 something is to be caught between generations. Within a couple years of starting our family, my parents were in a decline.

My Mom had her first heart attack at my graduation from USC. Yep, went to see her in my cap and gown. She had three others in the first years of our marriage. My father had had a cancer scare but it turned out not to be...that time.

Meanwhile, we had miscarried again and then decided to go ahead and buy a van and vacation in Fla. Yep, spending large sums of money does great things to your fertility. So, here we were at the turn of 1989 to 1990 expecting our second daughter in between my mom's illnesses.

That spring she got encephalitis and almost died. I could not go see her as they could not verify it was safe. She recovered, again and was able to be here when Christie was born that June and her birth was scheduled, with everyone there after recovery. We dropped Kate off at the nursery with balloons, a cake and a t-shirt that read, "I'm the big sister." Les and I went in for the delivery and asked everyone to wait til later to come. This was our chance to do it right.

I had asked him if he wanted to do the V-back thing and go back through Lamaze. This was to be our last and I wanted it to be everything he had hoped for. He said, "I think just being there this time will be an improvement, don't you?" Whew, I love that man!

So, we brought her home (even our big girls are small, 5# 15.5 oz). We had a sweet summer together. Going to the mall and walking with friends. It was perfect.

Then dad went in for some tests and we found out he had lung cancer. The bad one. The six months one. I had always told Les our little family came first but he knew I could not leave him to fight this so Les cared for our girls while I worked three twelves in Columbia and stayed in Charleston the rest of the week to help with his treatment. It was a time of sacrifice for everyone. No sleep, no fun. Just tasks and trying to put one foot in front of the other with a plastic smile on your face.

He responded to Chemo and radiation and after months of hell we had a brief respite. I remember watching Christie doing something that I thought was new and Les saying, "No, she's been doing that for months." I remember crying because I did not know. He pulled a box out of the bottom of his closet and showed me it was full of videos.

"I knew you did not want to miss it," he said. We stayed up all night watching Christie's first everythings...because he loved me and knew how to care for me.