2024 Week 27 - July 6: Days Going By

I was talking to my neighbor the other day and we were talking about a family friend who has cancer. She is scheduled to do chemotherapy every other week, however, the doctors have to keep canceling because her red and white blood cells are too low to handle the treatment.

Every two years, her entire family spend two weeks on Maui in June. Three generations of family in one place for a relaxing family vacation. This June was the scheduled time. She went to her cancer session and, again, the doctors cancelled the chemo due to her low blood cell count. Her husband asked what she wanted to do. She said, "we are going to Maui for one week." She is too weak to walk or stand for long periods of time so they got her a wheelchair, booked their flights and hotel and off they went. While most of the family stayed for two weeks, she had to be back to see if she could handle the next treatment. Everyone knows that will probably be her last time to Maui, perhaps her last time anywhere and on an airplane. This woman was the life of the party. Dancing until dawn and up in the morning to cease the day. Then one day she went to the doctor. She had a cough that would not go away. She didn't feel sick, she didn't have a fever, just a nagging cough. By the end of the appointment she was told she had stage 4 cancer. The woman who walked into the doctor's office was not the same woman who walked out. Words spoken by one crumbled the world for many.

At the end of this story my neighbor told me if she was in that situation she would want to spend her days sitting at the beach. From sunrise to sunset, just sitting. Watching. Hearing the laughter, feeling the sun, watching the waves.

The company I work at is for sale. We are owned by an investment firm and they are ready to let us go and make their money. I am well aware that things could change, rapidly and significantly. Yet there is a part of me at peace. A part of me that, dare I say, welcomes a change. If we are given this one chance on the planet, we should use it as playground to fill ourselves with joy. You never know when the world you have looked at the for so many years will change. While the eyes you are looking through haven't changed and the world you are looking at hasn't changed, the lens at which you see through has. Do you look with happiness, sadness, grief, envy, joy, loathing, impatience or regret. So many emotions to choose from. It is why the world that I see through my eyes, may not be the same one you see through yours.