Tag Archives: living

Last Thursday I went to visit my daughter at college.. brought her down some things she had forgotten from the initial move down. We spent a part of the day with her friends and part of the day just her and myself. It was a wonderful day. While driving home from Hayley’s college I was thinking about how great it is to be able to spend time with her at college now that she is so close, how great it is that she and her friends actually want to spend time with a parent, how great it is that she is happy at Clark and how great it is that she is such a beautiful and caring person and I look forward to seeing her get older, graduate college, get married, have kids etc.. I was so happy thinking these thoughts when I thought.. what if this cancer decides to take me early.

Now I have thought about this before obviously and in general try to not think about death too much just because I want to keep a positive outlook on things. However, there are times when I have to think about death.. it is a possibility. While this cancer has a good chance of being treated it’s not 100%. I know people don’t want to talk about death, and maybe I shouldn’t talk about it here and I’m not trying to be morbid but I do need to talk about it, if only just this once because it is a very real possibility and one that I don’t want to face being scared of. Having this cancer is like having a noose hanging very lose to my head and it’s a threat that will always be there.

Most of the time I just don’t give it much attention but that night, driving home, I could see the noose clearer then I have before and I think it’s because I realized just how much I have to lose and how much I really don’t want to lose it. I have learned so much over the last 6 months due to having this cancer and having to change so many things in my life due to it with most of them being for the better. I really feel I have woken up and I am finally alive. I will be making some major changes here pretty soon (will say those at another time) and while they were forced on me I know now they are for the better. I feel like I am really living my life how I should have been and how I will be. There is a clarity that wasn’t there before being diagnosed and only just within the last couple of months that clarity is so strong and I don’t want to give all that up now, now that I finally see what I should be doing and how to live to be happy, I mean really truly happy and at peace.

I also want to be there to see my daughter graduate college, watch her get married and hold my grandchildren.  I want to have many more days like the one we had last week. I don’t want to give her up, I don’t want her to lose her mother at such an early age. These and what I said above all of a sudden became crystal clear while driving home and while crying and driving I felt the enormity of the cancer and what it could do to me. Mind you I don’t always feel this way, in fact usually I don’t even think too much about it, but that night I did and I allowed myself to feel it. After all it is a part of me and I need to honor it. After crying and thinking about it I came away from it with a stronger will to fight to not lose this battle with this bitch I know as cancer.