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The Strength of an Egg

1/24/2012

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The Strength of an Egg

Parents of children with cancer, or really any serious condition, are  often referred to or viewed as having strength "like a rock." Albeit flattering,  it isn't quite true. It is more like the strength of an egg. An egg, you ask?  Yes, an egg. If you think about an egg, you will see the point I make.

An egg has a polished smooth outer appearance with no cracks or weak spots .........visible. It seems almost inconceivable that the inside might not be as smooth and solid as the outside.
Most children, at some point in their lifetime, are shown the famous egg trick. An egg set at  just the right angle can withstand enormous amounts of pressure and cannot be cracked or broken. Yet that same egg, tapped gently at an even slightly different angle will break. The contents, once so neatly concealed inside, will come spilling out, and the no longer perfect shell will be crushed. Then the  shell looks so fragile that it seems inconceivable that it ever held any strength.

That is where parents of children with cancer are more like  eggs than rocks. A rock is solid all the way through. If you tried to break a rock, it would be almost impossible. If successful, one would find that there  was nothing inside but more rock. It takes a lot more than pure
hardness to hold  the hand of hope. These parents are not solid all the way through. They hurt, they fear, they cry, they hope. It takes a very careful balancing act to keep the shell from being shattered.

Balancing an egg while running a household, going for doctor visits and hospital stays, keeping the family  together, and holding on to the constantly unraveling ties of your sanity can be very tricky indeed. Occasionally, the angle will be off and the shell will break, shattering hope and the neatly secured appearances of a truly fragile existence. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, though, parents of kids with cancer will pick themselves up and put themselves back together again.

By Juliet Freitag
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    The majority of all these entries were written by Darrel's father, Stephen.  For those that are not, efforts have been made to give proper credit where it is due.

    The bulk of the posts are in the June 2011 Archives Section, as that is when I transferred them over to this site.  Category Tags should allow you to find entries easier.

    I've tried to correct spacing issues on many of the entries, as most of the older ones have been copied from different sites I've used in the past. I apologize if some have been overlooked.

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