Sunday, April 5, 2009

Inevitable

Last week, a long time friend lost her battle with breast cancer. She was 47, ten years younger than I am. My own mother died of breast cancer when she was just 42. And this winter I had a “questionable mammogram” requiring two rounds of additional imagining. Of course, I did a lot of reflecting on all kinds of things-far too many, and far too personal to share tonight.

My 2003 lupus adventure was life threatening. Thanks be to God, I am still here. I know that having systemic lupus doubles my risk for cardiovascular events and that the chemo I take to keep my own kidneys increases my risk of lymphoma. The history of cancer is strong on my mom’s side of the family. But do you know what? 99.44% of the time I don’t think about those things. Instead, I strengthen my resolve. I do my best to eat well, exercise (ARRGH), meditate and practice yoga in the hope of maximizing the amount of time that I can be functional and independent. But I know these things won’t make me immortal. The comedian Red Fox said that there are going to be a lot of embarrassed health nuts in nursing homes dying of nothing! I would love to be like my great grandma Babcha who, at the age of 94, simply went to sleep and never woke up.

Regardless of how we go, none of can escape dying. So we have a choice. We can waste our present moments obsessing about it, or we can live as fully as possible in the present. Or we can ignore the inevitable as long as possible, acting as if we have all the time in the world when all we have is this second. Either way, all we really have is now and we get to choose what we do with it.

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