Thursday, October 5, 2006

Entry for October 05, 2006 - Choices



Choices...





Here it is late again at night and I am sitting here writing or thinking about writing a blog. It's not like I have some pressing subject on my mind that needs to be said. But I have been thinking of this blog entry for a few days now after reading some of this week's past blogs.



There have been serious blogs, and blogs of silliness,... and some would argue there are too many that fall in either category. Some bloggers want to read blogs on serious matters, and some bloggers that think  life is serious enough, and anything that brings smiles and laughter is a good thing. I like both, some are easier to read though... I don't think very many accuse me of being too serious... or taking myself too seriously.



Reading some of the blogs this week, I found a recurring theme in some of them....Well.. in a way I suppose in all of them.



The matter of choice...and the choices we make.



I think it was Spotty who wrote a blog on suicide and then it sparked a blog for Possum on decisions. Zim then posted a blog on choices and being informed on vaccinations and preventiveness of disease and well, the  harder I looked the more it seemed so connected.



Choices...



Hillbilly had a most thought provoking blog about anger and his choice to choose forgiveness.



Sue and Mahvin have posted on their blogs of wanting to improve their lifestyles and their personal battle with diets and dieting. They both have chosen to make improvements in their lives. Positive choices of which they will reap the rewards.



I have read and shared giggles on blogs of Halloween and costumes and jokes and all kinds of silly things. Given a choice I think I would choose laughter as a way  to start off every day.



Every day is a choice and about the choices we make. Some are good, some we make in the heat of emotion, and some we wish we could change. Which brings me back to the beginning...back to Spotty's and Possum's blogs... I guess it really is a 360 circle.



A few years ago I was asked to help a neighbor and good friend who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her family couldn't be there all the time and asked me to fill in some of the hours, so I said I would. I don't think at the time I had thought it out, I just answered automatically yes.



We all sat around the kitchen table, my friend, her large family of kids and grandkids, the hospice nurses, and myself. They explained in great detail of the hospice program and were very professional about it. Then they pushed the papers over to be signed by my friend. She held that pen in her hand twirling it for a few moments. In her face I saw all the despair, and fear, and dread she was feeling and I felt it rise up in me as well... It took everything in me to not get up and bolt from that room....and it took everything in her to sign those papers.



Some choices we have no control of, some choices are made for us, and sometimes we really don't have a choice.



In that short summer I learned about pills, and pain patches and different strengths of pain patches, and supplements, and ports, and how to hook up an electric pump to a tube in the stomach to pump the contents out before those contents came back up on their own. Between the cancer and a huge ulcer, nothing would stay down longer than 15 minutes. It was a defeating process... and feeling.



But during that time, I never saw that look on her face again...and I never felt that overwhelming feeling again. I think we both found that quiet place. That quiet place that Zimmy talked about in her last blog. That wherever you are at, you can hear the quiet...and find peace.



I use to think that people make choices in life, and for life, and that death and dying doesn't begin until a person takes that last breath...



Now I often wonder if it doesn't begin, when you learn that you have no hope.......or choice.














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