Day 51: July 27, 2019

Day 51, or also known as The Day The Trees Came Down. I sort of eluded that this was going to happen in my post yesterday. LITTLE DID I KNOW: we were talking about 20 trees. 2-0. And not little trees. Big freaking everygreens, the smallest being probably two stories tall. Not kidding.


It was a disaster.


Luckily we had warned our neighbors that the road would be blocked- two were out of town and one was not going anywhere. Which was good... because the road was blocked from about 9am to 5pm with down trees. Justin chain sawed for a good 7 hours alongside the tree guy (who was here for about 4). Bailey and I both worked to help clean up- I was out there for about 4-5 hours.


I remember muttering during a million runs of the pick up game, just another freaking crazy ideas, freaking JUSTIN. Just another one of his loony ideas that seems like a good idea until he forgets that the "little" trees are only little compared to the 200 foot evergreens NEXT to the little ones. THEY ARE NOT LITTLE.  WHAT WAS HE THINKING? Twenty?! I mean... seriously? Maybe start with ONE?


But you know what?


At 6pm when we finally sort of finished (not really...still giant piles of trees out there we need to deal with, but our driveway and our neighbors driveways are clear), I looked around and guess what? I saw sunlight. I was standing in our driveway and instead of being shaded in, the light was coming through. And I was shocked.


We are not known for being conservative and not biting off more than we can chew. This is pretty typical where we just dive on in and then deal with the aftermath (I would say we are both guilty of this in many respects). But regardless of the clean up, regardless of spending our day in a little bit of a different way than expected, at the end of the day, the results were...astounding. The amount of light we let in, the team effort it took to get there... we felt accomplished. A team. And we saw what the end result was going to be. And it was worth it.


Ready for this?


This is what Oliver's treatment has been like. A virtual 20 tree tear down. All in. Dealing with the aftermath, because we weren't really sure of the size of obstacles (trees) we were going to have to conquer. And at times, it has been a complete and utter disaster. Where we just looked around and weren't even sure where to begin. And didn't feel like the mess would ever end. But, at the end of the day, we pulled together, worked as a team, and could see the light. I am 100% not kidding you, this is what occurred to me as I was standing there looking at the complete change in my yard last night. I was covered in sap, had tree guts down my shirt, my pants, and in my hair, and had carried no less than 600 logs, but I saw the light and realized how similar this brief day adventure was to Oliver's story. Sometimes life is funny like that- the parallels and the lessons in the day to day to the biggest, hardest formative experiences.


Bright and early at 8:30am, the fun started:

The kids were fascinated (of course!)

I was with them watching and they were showing me their cars.

 See the guy up there in about middle right of the picture? Yeah. Sketch. Big enough trees you have to climb up them and chunk off in pieces. Yikes. No thank you.

These were about 10 of the "smaller" ones... PSA: the small ones are still big and make a giant mess!

Quick break inside for some water with brother Bailey who came up for a few hours to visit.

While we were in the land of trees, Oliver spent most of the day like the below. Actually, he spent a big chunk of the day in bed in his bedroom. Day 6 is historically one of the worst, and he just felt like crap. He was able to manage and fight through if he just laid down and stayed still. While it sucks that he feels so bad, it was a MUCH better day 6 than round 1. Round 2 was probably comparable, but I think this was even better than that because he is mentally fighting... I think it helps that he knows that the hurdles are getting close to being towards the end.

We spent the later hours of the evening outside... the boys worked on cars and I just enjoyed the nice evening. I love summer!

We had a little more fun with snap chat... as Colleen said, how many sitting and sleeping pictures can we take? Ha!

And at around 7:30 pm, Oliver said, ok, I think I am ready to go somewhere. Wow, really? Day 6! Ok, let's do it! So he and Colleen trekked to the mailbox. That is a HUGE win and accomplishment for day freaking 6! That is absolutely like seeing how much of a difference taking trees down is....complete light and hope at the end of the day.

So much #oliverstrong today. There was a shift in him, a fight we haven't quite seen before. It felt like a shift in how he's doing mentally. The #oliverstrong today was defined BY HIM in his fight and his vigilance to make it through even what is typically the hardest day. What an inspiration to us all.