Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

15 Years

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Fifteen years.

Well, this one has been a doozy.

Global pandemic.

Two hurricanes hitting the farm.

Work at feverish pace.

Cancer.

Still. We got from Year 14 to Year 15 intact. 

It’s curious this marriage thing. 

One year can look entirely different from the year before.

That’s particularly helpful to remember if it was hard year. 

But this marking of years, these anniversary celebrations, are important.  These big circles on the calendar say, “You did it! You two, working together, hung in there and helped each other and invested in your family. No matter what hit you, you two are still standing.” 

I reread some of my earlier anniversary posts this morning.  You know, I used to label the years. 

I don’t know if I’m wiser now or life is just more nuanced, but I don’t have a catchy one liner to sum up what God has done in us and for us over the past twelve months. 

But those words from years gone by still ring true.  I remember how hard year 7 was when I penned: Don’t let the circumstances of the NOW fool you into thinking this will be your circumstances in the LATER.  Every day is a new opportunity.  

On our ten year meeting each other anniversary, I wrote a remembrance, and concluded: You have been one-quarter of my life. But it feels like all of it. Like you’ve been who I needed my whole life. And he has been.

I’ve tried to be honest. To write about how I make mistakes and try to learn (and I still have so far to go).  Year 9 I recapped some of that with a story with this moral: Hanging in there through the tears and triumphs teaches us how to spot our own relationship weaknesses.  Sticking it out through the best and worst of times makes you a better person.

This is what has been true.  We show up.  It’s messy and beautiful.  Hard and then easy.  Awesome and then not remotely awesome.  Our kids turn twelve this year.  That’s the age I was when my parents divorced.  I don’t attempt to rewrite what their story was but it informs how I live my story. 

Showing up.  He shows up and I show up with our flaws and our imperfections.  Some days we’re a little more present than others. In year 12, it’s what struck me too: He shows up. Every day.  On the days I’m good and charming and encouraging and amorous and funny.  But he still totally shows up on the days I’m sad or losing my temper or sarcastic or inconsistent. And now, three years after I wrote those words, they are still completely true.

I know it’s not true for everyone. I know so many have felt the heartache of leaving or having been left or someone taken too soon. This just makes me all the more grateful to be standing here on this fifteenth May 6th.

I’ll end with the line from the classic 10 year anniversary retrospective blog post, it’s just as true today: And my prayer is that I’ll still be writing all the new things I love about him at 20 years and 30 years and 40 years.

Happy Anniversary Babe! Here’s to the next 15!

New Look at Date Night

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Friday night, I went on a date with my husband of almost 15 years.

The fact that we went on a date isn’t the oddity.

It’s the fact that it was sort of like a real date, pre-pandemic.

We ate inside of a restaurant. Then we went to a lovely small venue to hear the band that was playing the night we met. 

I bought those tickets in February 2020 for our anniversary weekend May 2020. 

As you might imagine, the show was delayed. To September. Then delayed some more.

They finally reset the date for April 9th.  One month before our 15th wedding anniversary. 

I wasn’t all that optimistic going into it. 

It was on a Friday night after a hectic week and we’d been having some disagreements about several issues.  Sitting across from each other at a quiet corner table wasn’t probably high on either one of our lists. 

We used to have date nights once a month when he was in the restaurant business.  We’d slip off for a couple hours when the kids were little and have a drink at the bar at his restaurant nearby. Catch up. Trade information we’d forgotten to trade in the haze of the work week. 

It helped. Those date nights. Even in the hard years.

So off we went on Friday, leaving the kids with a new sitter (over their objections). 

Dinner was great. 

I’ve been getting some bids for a small home remodeling project and we were able to talk through that. As well as talk about everything from work to the kids junior high elective options. 

We walked across the street to this old refurbished theater and settled in.  Everyone was spaced out and the waiter was super attentive. 

The band came on.  Two guys who sing and play the guitar along with their three back up bandmates.  They sounded just like they did one night in December 2003 at the Mucky Duck. 

There are these parts with this very deep and powerful guitar and I could feel the music in my bones. 

I thought I would burst into tears. 

It felt surreal. After all these months. To be sitting there listening to a concert. 

I thought of this devotional my friend sent to me from  the Episcopal Diocese’s Rev. Mariann Budde: After an initial season of suffering, as healing begins, we have moments, even days, when we feel surprisingly strong and whole. We have energy, and a sense that our lives have possibility again, and indeed, they do. The joy we feel is overwhelming. Yet because we have no reserves of energy to draw from, we are quickly depleted to the point of exhaustion. And there’s no warning–one moment we’re fine and the next we simply must lie down, leave the room, or immediately stop whatever it is we’re doing. The good news is that we’re on the path of healing. The challenge is to be patient with the process…

We’ve all been so isolated.  I think back on the past 12 months in our lives.  Global pandemic, home schooling, two hurricanes, family contracting COVID, separation from family, cancer diagnosis and treatment. 

In one year. 

Last week started feeling somewhat normal. 

I returned to the office. My burns are starting to heal. My energy level is starting to increase.  The kids played their games and went to practices. Bray and my work schedule was nuts. We juggled all the things and did it with enthusiasm. 

But we have no reserves of energy to draw from.

We think we’re moving back into normal mode but then these waves wash over you. 

I feel joy but I can’t feel it in a vaccuum.  I feel it alongside sorrow. 

Sitting there, in the dark, feeling the music in my bones, I flashed back to law school.  I caught the live music bug there, in Nashville.  We’d go to these little venues, big ones too, but weekend hole in the walls were the best.  Emerging bands would play. It was the mid 90s and there was all this great rock.  We’d go hear Petty and Kravitz but I also remember hearing Alanis at law school before she released her first cd (remember, before streaming…). 

I would feel the music in my bones. And I had to go back. I needed more. It was my drug of choice. Live music. Whenever I could afford it.

Then I flashed back to that Friday night the week after Thanksgiving in 2003.  My friends and I went to hear Jackopierce at this tiny venue.  We went to the first show at 7.  Bray and his brother came at the break for the second show, although they actually came for us girls.  Bray and I had our first conversation with  Won’t you stay on the vineyard for the summer… and Get to know me better wafting in the background. 

I could see it all. 

But at some point in 2020 it felt like we weren’t going to dig out of this dark hole.

Of course we would.

But it felt endless. 

Concerts seemed to be particularly out of reach. No live music, maybe for years. 

Here we were. Music amped. One week after I rang the bell.  No more cancer treatments. Fully immunized and able to go to hear live music. 

I was talking to our waiter after the concert when we closed our tab.  This is the first time I’ve really be “out” since this all started last year, I told him. (The band said this was their first outing too! “Happy New Year” they proclaimed!)

He responded, I know. It’s been so crazy. And we need this. We need each other. We need community.

I’d missed it all so much.

Everything.

The people.

The waiters.

And oh the music.

It felt so hopeful. 

So I allowed a tear to leak out, and then I smiled, held Bray’s hand, and sang along, won’t you stay on the vineyard for the summer, won’t you stay on the vineyard for the year…

Day 23 – Ring the Bell

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It’s done. I rang the bell.

Hallelujah!

It was a really good day.

I cried on and off all day. I’m just so overwhelmed by the goodness of God.

Music is a big part of my faith experience. I love music and it’s so often the tool God uses to draw me close.

Driving to my last radiation treatment, I turned on the radio. I don’t often listen to our local Christian radio station while driving to the hospital, I might listen to news or a podcast, but this morning I felt compelled.

While driving in, this was the playlist that came on: Jericho by Andrew Ripp, Dry Bones by Lauren Daigle, Waymaker by Leeland, and Known by Tauren Wells.

If you’re not familar with these songs, here some of the lyrics:

Long before I ever called your name, you were fighting for my victory. Carved in your flesh and bone are wounds that have said my soul’s forgiven. All of my fears like Jericho walls gotta come down, come down… (Jericho)

But we know that You are God, Yours is the victory. WE know there is more to come that we may not yet see. So with the faith You’ve given us we’ll step into the valley unafraid. As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive. We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive. Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise. We call out to dry bones, come alive. (Dry Bones)

And you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. (Waymaker)

I’m fully known and loved by You. You won’t let go, no matter what I do. And it’s not one or the other, it’s hard truth and ridiculous grace to be known, fully known, and loved by you. I’m fully known and loved by you. (Known)

While I was at MD Anderson, the amazing team of therapists I had were so excited for me. My entire family came and stood outside the glass door that looks in at the bell so they could cheer me on. The women were so excited to “meet” the triplets they’d heard about.

After my final dose of radiation, we walked down the hall. You read a poem on the wall, “Ring this bell, three times well, it’s toll to clearly say, my treatment’s done, this course is run, and I am on my way!” Seriously, I’m crying typing it. I was crying reading it. Then you toll the bell three times. Bray and the kids were outside cheering.

I’d stopped for donuts for the therapists and picked some up for the kids too. I got to drop them off at school (a little late, we got special clearance to come celebrate with me)!

On our way to school, God blessed me with more music. Amen by King and Country and New Today by Micah Tyler. Resurrection day is here. Bells are ringin’ loud and clear. Caterpillar to a butterfly. Risen to another life. All the people say Amen! Amen! All the people say Amen! Amen! From death to life. Amen means SO BE IT. It is an affirmative response. And a conclusion. What a gift to have AMEN playing on the radio at my conclusion. Then:
Your mercies are new today, your mercies are new today. I can rest on your shoulders, there is grace to start over, your mercies are new today. (New Today) After the conclusion, I had the gift of a reminder: TODAY IS NEW! There is grace to start over. Today is a fresh start.

What a gift. God affirming messages through music that He has been teaching me all along the way. People all day trickled in with texts and messages. A dear friend dropped flowers. A precious co-worker zoomed me. (Ha!)

After little bit’s softball practice, Bray took us all out to dinner to celebrate. We went to the exact same spot he took us after we’d found out the cancer news and we were all so sad. We had laughed so hard that night, for the first time in two days, and it was such a celebration this time. He ordered champagne and dessert, big splurges for us, and we ended up seeing three separate families we knew at the restaurant who cheered us too! I opened a good bottle of wine a precious executive had given me a few years back for a big win. I let him know he was helping us celebrate another big win.

It’s all been a gift. All of it. The drains and the miracle of how it got out. The surgeon and the miracle of how I got her. COVID and the miracle of how everyone caught it but me. The community who utterly surrounded us and loved us and showered us with their presence and their presents.

I’m not out of it. I’m still burned and tired and it will take a few weeks. But I’m SO completely deep in my bones grateful. For this. For God. For my family. And for you.

Day 22 – What’s Next

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Tomorrow will be the big “we’re finished” post!

What’s next?

Today I’m less than 24 hours away from my final radiation treatment.

I have a follow up appointment in May with my plastic surgeon.

Then in the fall I will have my six month appointment with my radiologist, oncologist, and will do another mammogram. Those won’t end but that just means that I got to keep my boobs! So it’s a-okay.

The week of that appointment is also the Susan B Komen Race for a Cure which I plan to RUN. This may not seem like a big deal. But I can’t run down the street right now much less a 5k.

So next is pulling it back together. I feel like between the pandemic and cancer I just gave up on my body. I ate whatever I wanted and really didn’t exercise except to walk the dog. This is time to double down. Cut back on the wine. And cheese. And sugar. You know, all the good stuff. Really focus on exercising. The kids are 11 – this old body needs to last for a long time.

We’re going to do fun stuff too. We’ll do a yes day – I promised. The family has that fabulous long vacation in Maine. A 5th grade graduation and a 50th birthday and a summer. All good and joyful things!

We focus on the good. And we build more of it into our lives.

One day more. (In the words of the legendary Jean Valjean…)

Day 21 – Last Week

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Well, I did it!

I managed to write every day of radiation.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun. 

There are two more days left.

That’s right. Two. More. Days.

Today was Day 21 and my last day is Wednesday. 

I hesitate to say how I am because I feel like it’s the underlying theme in all my posts.  Tired. And burned.

But even with that, I’m almost done.

It’s extraordinary to me. 

I had my biopsy on December 2nd.  Then my doctor called on December 7th to tell me the tumor was malignant.  By December 21st, I’d met with my full team of surgeon, oncologist and radiologist at MD Anderson. 

In just over one month, February 2nd, they’d cut the stinkin’ tumor out. 

Then, this month, 23 radiation visits at 7:30 am from March 1st to March 31st.  I finish right before Easter.  I’ll be ringing the bell well before our June summer vacation that I planned LAST SUMMER with no idea of what was ahead. 

The two hurricanes that would smash the family farm. 

COVID classrooms. 

Cancer. 

Actual COVID hitting everyone in our house but me. 

An apocalyptic winter storm.

We had no idea when we clicked “reserve” on a big house on the water in Bar Harbor, Maine what a gift that time away would be.  What a celebration of life and God’s mercies. 

Two more days.