The Choice
Once, when I was a boy, I found a little green caterpillar. His many tiny feet tickled as he crawled up my finger and down to my palm. It was the first time I’d seen a caterpillar up close. As boys often do with a newly discovered creature, I made him my pet. I even named him, and, just like Dad did with our dog, I got him something to eat.
My first experience with death
I grabbed a lettuce leaf and quickly tore it up into small pieces. But I forgot he was on my palm. When I opened my hand, there was only a wet green smudge. I’d crushed him. I killed Herman.
I was a boy and to anyone else, he would just be a bug. But I remember how it felt to lose him. One moment I held a beautiful creature in my hand, the next nothing but wet green gunk. I suppose a minute later I wiped the mess on my jeans and ran off on another adventure, but for that long minute, I was sad, really sad.
It was my first experience with death.
I’m 67 and I know this sounds weird, but I think of Herman every now and then. I was a little boy back then with little boy feelings. I was sad and felt a bit guilty, but I wasn’t old enough to really understand the deeper lesson.
It is perhaps the greatest mystery. Not just that life is short, but that life and death are so close to each other. I mean, one moment my green friend was alive and on his journey to becoming a butterfly then, almost instantly, he was gone.
This post isn’t about death though. It’s about how we live the life we’re given.
With cancer, choosing to stay on the path of hope
We have cancer. It sucks. It is a fearsome thing. If we’re not diligent, it can fill our daily lives with hopelessness. So we have a choice to make. It’s not an easy one.
Like a fork in the road, there are two ways to live. Even if we’re in remission, the same two paths lie before us. Both are about focus. It is a decision we have to make, and remake, every day of our lives.
When we awake each morning where do we let our thoughts go? Is it the sunlight falling through our window, or has the anxiety that kept us up so late come back?
Are we going to let our disease darken our days, or are we going to fight back by grabbing every moment of light the day brings us?
One of our members who goes by the handle @bluchs put it beautifully in one of our forums:
“I have had plenty of time to make my peace, and say all of my goodbyes, but it remains very hard. So I will still pray, and I will still hope, and I will fight right up to the end.”
His words should be an inspiration to all of us.
So, as for me, I try hard to stay on the path of hope because, no matter how much time I have left, I’d rather die living than live dying.
Community Poll
Have you taken our In America Survey yet?
Join the conversation