This week is the anniversary of our leaving Georgia. It's been a year since we loaded all of our belongings into a truck and waved good-bye to our home.
Since we didn't know I had cancer then, it's sort of easy to remember things as "better" back there. But the truth would have surfaced there as well and we'd have had to face it just the same. It's odd to think back and realize that all that time I did have cancer. I could have been a cancer patient there had my appointment been more thorough on my first visit to the breast surgeon there. I didn't know I was "sick" but I posted this to a blog last March. Things were different before we knew.
1 comment:
how is it possible a year has elapsed?
reading your post from last year when you had the 'cyst' is beyond insightful.
you are such a courageous winner!
and, on a different note, you know that a friend of mine, thor hesla, was killed in kabul.
how does this relate to you and your blog? because you are one of the lucky ones, jenn. all those days and months you may have thought you could not live through have all been here, and, mercifully gone. thankfully you were home for that chapter.
between your experience with the "squatter," and now thor, i thought i would "cher" a poem that was posted at his memorial, which seems apt when you reference the natural tendency to think things were better in atlanta:
I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end
He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years
For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not how much we own;
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.
So think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left, that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger, and show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect, and more often wear a smile
Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while,
So, when your eulogy is being read with your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?
©1996 Linda Elli
february is a month that has a designated day to show love. you and thor have made such a difference in my life, therefore, i am using the entire month vs. just the 14th to be the change i want to see in the world by being more loving and kind and living with boldness and gratitude every day with that "dash" in mind.
happy anniversary to you, jenn as well as to your families and friends.
with love and gratitude,
~ c
Post a Comment