Time To Live
We are all dying.
After forty-four years I am finally forced to face my mortality. Whether the cancer I have kills me in two years, or something else in four, or old age in fifty, I am dying.
Even after all I have lived through, until now I never really thought that possible. There have been car wrecks and near misses; drug overdoses as a child by doctors and asthma attacks; injuries and illness; three days with botulism, and of course two previous bouts with cancer. I never considered I would die.
I have spent my life searching for the faith I know I have so strong in my heart. I have been a student of nature, at one with my surroundings; watching life, and death, and never really understanding that I too am part of that cycle.
These past days I have looked deep within myself and I am at peace after so long. So much of my life I have not lived it - but worried about “what ifs”. So many days I could have spent more time cherishing a moment, a child, a flower, a laugh.
I try to “feel” everything now, as if I am seeing it all in slow motion. I feel the wind whip through my hair and it feels like hours. I stare at a tree and try to imagine all the memories each root, each branch, each leaf, may have inside it.
I do not know how much more time I do have, but I will never surrender my life here. I know Jesus waits for me on the other side, but I cling to these precious moments that I have on this world. I only hope I sustain the dignity I have tried to show my whole life through it all.
So many times we listen to the words, but we do not hear them. We are told to ‘cherish each moment’, ‘live your life for today for who knows what tomorrow brings’; yet we do not really get the message, often until too late.
It is hard to believe I have a son in college, and a daughter in high school. Too many of their years of growth were spent at work, or away from them, or trying to finish some project; when all of those things would have taken care of themselves. I have tried not to be so with my two younger children. Having goals and dreams are wonderful, and you should work hard to attain them, but do not forsake your life; that time that never comes again.
Since my second diagnosis two years ago of cancer, I have tried to spend more time ‘living’. I have often failed, but have done my best. I have taken more time with all of my children, and tried to do more with them. I have cut back at work and retired from coaching because the time spent away from them became too unbearable.
I have done nothing wrong. If it is to be my time, then it is the will of God. By the same token, maybe it is not my time and I will, with God’s love and understanding, defeat this disease.
We are all dying – but we must do our best ‘to live’!