Saturday, June 26, 2010


I am Pro Choice and also Pro Life ! There I have said it. Oh, don't worry not in the way you think. I may be a walking contradiction on many levels but no, this is no contradiction.
I realized this week that you need to choose to live. Not just breathe air, but really, really live.
After another minor bump in the road, I ended up back in the hospital for yet another sojourn.
As I sat in emergency for 7 hours before being seen, and then another 5 hours until they proceeded with treatment, I couldn't help feel an immense longing for the time being wasted.
I know we all use the expression " A waste of time" but truthfully is there anything in the world that should make us angrier...anything or anybody wasting our precious time.
Ultimately I realized that Time is finite...yet so easily wasted...so easily taken for granted.
How much time have we wasted, being bored, being angry...being, but not enjoying.
As I ended up on 9 Surgical ( yet again) I commented to the staff how sad it was that some patients, in the room next to me, were still in the hospital. After all I had already been home for 6 weeks.
" How long has she been here I asked?" Quietly the orderly help up 2 fingers. " Wow I said 2 months?"...." No" she said "2 years". TWO YEARS !!!!
I think my gulp was audible all the way to Toronto.
I actually became anxious. It wasn't the 2 years of hospitalization, it was the immense waste of precious time.
Recently someone very close to me was also diagnosed with cancer, yes when it rains it pours. Never a chipper person at the best of times, she has fallen into a depression and refuses to seek help. She hasn't come to the realization yet that you need to Choose Life...Choose to Live.
So really we should all be Pro Choice and Pro Life.
Pro Choosing to Live life every moment we can.

I don't want to die yet, don't get me wrong it's not the dying, it's the idea of NOT living that scares the hell out of me. Not laughing, Not smiling, Not Hugging someone you love, Not waking up each morning and doing something you love. Not, not wasting time!
Will there be sad times, yes, but even then we live by leaning on those we love, holding someone tight and crying on a shoulder of a friend.
Think of all the moments of your life that have been wasted and join me in choosing to live....
This morning I'm making Challah French Toast..ahhhhhh...let the living begin!!!!!!

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Carl Sandburg






2 comments:

  1. "How much time have we wasted, being bored, being angry...being, but not enjoying."
    Keep teaching us Sam. It may not always be a lot of fun what you are going through -STUPID UNDERSTATEMENT - we need you to keep teaching us.
    I can tell you one thing, you have never wasted a moment of your life. Not one.

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  2. Simon is right. You have never been one to waste time; even during those God-awful British farces, you balanced your cheque book!

    Love you!

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