Sarah, Che and I are leaving Walmart but are blocked in because, in the handicapped parking space next to ours, a wife struggles to help her husband into their car.
It is agonizingly slow and painful to watch.
The wife clumsily drops her man into the passager seat, pricks his legs up, places them on the floorboard, then shuts the door. She looks tired and sad.
"Well, that'll be us in 4 or 5 years," Sarah says, squeezing my knee.
"FOUR OR FIVE YEARS?" I laugh.
"Well, if you are," she shrugs, "we'll be like that.
"Yeah," I laugh, and Sarah laughs with me.
We do keep an optimistic attitude and, in spite of multiple cancers, remain future focused.
You have to be if you want to stay alive!
Dying in America is ridiculously expensive, inconvenient, invasive, complicated and completely out of your control.
Sarah and I don't like to find ourselves in a reactionary position, as we like to have a plan and the only way you can develop one, is to talk.
So we talk openly about it.
"Da," Che asks, "do you think you'll still be here for my tenth birthday party?"
I shrug, squeeze her shoulder, smile and answer, "Probably not."
"Okay," she says, skipping back to her room.
And we talk about the future.
A lot!
Some of it's my future too.
All of it's short term planning, mostly end of life preparation. The details are nebulous right now, but we're doing the best we can, and they'll work themselves out as we get closer. We don't dwell on it, though we do talk about it.
We spend far more time planning Sarah and Che's future!
Honestly, it's a lot more fun and exotic than that which involves me and I relish in these conversations and dreams.
"God's greatest gift is the chance to start over," Eile Wiesel said, and there's marvelous excitement and joy in knowing, and planning, for it.
Maybe, I might get to get a glimpse of what that future's going to be like, and it thrills me to think about the life they're going to have.
Without me.
It comforts me greatly to know they'll be fulfilling plans and living their dreams.
So, I find myself thinking about Moses a lot.
"There the Lord showed him the whole land ... I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it."
He led the people to the Promised Land, even got to see it, but never got to enter.
And Moses dies after seeing the Promised Land.
I'm okay with that.
I want to glimpse, perhaps even touch, their futures before I die.
It is agonizingly slow and painful to watch.
The wife clumsily drops her man into the passager seat, pricks his legs up, places them on the floorboard, then shuts the door. She looks tired and sad.
"Well, that'll be us in 4 or 5 years," Sarah says, squeezing my knee.
"FOUR OR FIVE YEARS?" I laugh.
"Well, if you are," she shrugs, "we'll be like that.
"Yeah," I laugh, and Sarah laughs with me.
We do keep an optimistic attitude and, in spite of multiple cancers, remain future focused.
You have to be if you want to stay alive!
Dying in America is ridiculously expensive, inconvenient, invasive, complicated and completely out of your control.
Sarah and I don't like to find ourselves in a reactionary position, as we like to have a plan and the only way you can develop one, is to talk.
So we talk openly about it.
"Da," Che asks, "do you think you'll still be here for my tenth birthday party?"
I shrug, squeeze her shoulder, smile and answer, "Probably not."
"Okay," she says, skipping back to her room.
And we talk about the future.
A lot!
Some of it's my future too.
All of it's short term planning, mostly end of life preparation. The details are nebulous right now, but we're doing the best we can, and they'll work themselves out as we get closer. We don't dwell on it, though we do talk about it.
We spend far more time planning Sarah and Che's future!
Honestly, it's a lot more fun and exotic than that which involves me and I relish in these conversations and dreams.
"God's greatest gift is the chance to start over," Eile Wiesel said, and there's marvelous excitement and joy in knowing, and planning, for it.
Maybe, I might get to get a glimpse of what that future's going to be like, and it thrills me to think about the life they're going to have.
Without me.
It comforts me greatly to know they'll be fulfilling plans and living their dreams.
So, I find myself thinking about Moses a lot.
"There the Lord showed him the whole land ... I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it."
He led the people to the Promised Land, even got to see it, but never got to enter.
And Moses dies after seeing the Promised Land.
I'm okay with that.
I want to glimpse, perhaps even touch, their futures before I die.
_______________
I'm dying as happily as I can, but I think I can to better.
See how by clicking the link this link
https://gofund.me/ffda4f4b
Thank you!
