With Love

The world lost an amazing person on Friday. Not just amazing in my opinion, but factually amazing – it’s just the truth.

He was going to change the world. He was going to see to it that every single orphan on the planet found a loving home. He left us prematurely and there is nothing fair about that…the only way I can make any sense of it is to think that the person who is going to bring about world peace must have been born on Friday and the universe simply could not sustain so much goodness within it all at once.

Paul was a mentor to me. He showed me that being a corporate executive is not an excuse to be an asshole (and, as I liked to tell him, he ruined me for all other executives). He taught me that passion is contagious. He inspired me to find a purpose in my work. He was brilliant and generous and funny and kind. He knew what mattered. And unlike a lot of people, he did not need a brain tumor to put his life in perspective.

I am grateful that I knew him. I am heartbroken that he is gone. And I am confident that his light will live on in the thousands of lives that he touched while he was here. Thank you, Paul.

The Byproduct of Locomotion

I'm in a burrowing mood. I want to burrow.

I had to look that word up because I was worried I was using it incorrectly (Google-induced paranoia). According to Wikipedia: A burrow is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion.

I think my particular variety of burrowing is the byproduct of locomotion...ok, I'm pretty sure I'm using that term incorrectly...I just like the idea of outside forces being simply "locomotion," like things are rushing by you and they make you want to burrow.

My instinct to burrow was started by a sinus infection that I let get away from me without seeking drugs, but it's been significantly worsened by today's news that someone who holds a special place in my heart is losing his battle with cancer.

He has a brain tumor, you see, and despite multiple rounds of chemo and all the prayer in the world, that tumor has started to get bigger. And even though his wife has remained impossibly optimistic throughout this lengthy ordeal, her message today made it clear that we are no longer waiting for a miracle, we have moved into hoping for an end to his suffering.

I think I thought that since he's been sick for so long, this news wouldn't be so jarring, but it turns out I was secretly expecting that miracle. Because honestly, after all the lives he has touched, this guy deserves one.

Which brings me to the burrowing. If it weren't for my kids, I probably wouldn't even be writing this blog because I'd be curled up in the fetal position just wallowing.

I'm sad, yes. But I also feel guilty because I haven't seen him. My last exchange with him was more than 18 months ago and it was over email, just before he had the brain surgery from which he never fully recovered. Maybe guilty isn't the right word, as I don't think he was sitting around wondering why I never came to visit (he was a mentor and I know he played a more important role in my life than I played in his).

I guess maybe I'm having regrets...wondering if not seeing him was the right thing to do...hanging onto this idea that I would see him when he was better, even when I knew that day might not come. I just don't think I can see him like this. I don't want to remember him as anything less than the pillar of strength and love that he always was.

And rather than face the painful reality of what is happening, I guess I'd rather burrow...even if the refuge is only temporary.

Seizing the Day...and Not

A friend of mine just had a health scare – the kind that is so terrifying that it changes your life even when you find out it’s really okay (and it is really okay, thank god). Obviously the waiting to find out was much more excruciating on her end, so I won’t belabor my own agony, but it did get me thinking. 

I’m getting CaringBridge updates on two different people who are deep in the fight with cancer right now. One who I believe will win and one who, it pains me to say, I’m not so sure about…and, you know, it feels totally arrogant to even mention the way I feel about any of it because I’m sitting safely on the sidelines…and yet, well, it’s my blog, so I suppose that makes me a tiny bit arrogant from the outset.

My first instinct to being confronted with the mortality of people I care about is to embrace carpe diem. No day but today! Live each day as if it's your last! Right, and then you realize that just in case this day isn’t your last, you should probably go to work.

I suppose it’s the same struggle as always, just slightly more narrowly focused for a moment: How do you find meaning in life? How do you make a difference, leave a mark, or make a contribution to the world that you will one day leave behind? What do you want people to remember about you?

I suppose my 40 by 40 list is an attempt at committing to doing what’s important to me…albeit over an eight-year span. Isn’t it just a little presumptuous to make such a list?  

If I found out today that I had a week or a month or a year to live, would I run out and do all of the things on that list, or would I hunker down with my husband and my precious babies and attempt to absorb a lifetime’s worth of joy? Would I attempt to journal every bit of motherly wisdom that I’ve been assuming I had decades to impart? In Ireland, perhaps?

It’s so easy to look at it and say that it’s all about priorities, it’s all about following your heart, but we all know that sometimes priorities and heartstrings collide and we’re not always enlightened enough in that moment to make a decision we might be proud of for eternity…

Sometimes we just make the decision that gets us through the day. And that’s okay, sometimes. Because it has to be. I guess we just hope that over time, we make more of the right decisions and less of the wrong ones, and that slowly, but surely, we steer our lives to the place that we want them to be. 

Be the Match

Our friend's daughter was diagnosed with leukemia last weekend. She is seven. 

In addition to the flood of emotion it brought, the news of her diagnosis reminded me that I had once vowed to join the bone marrow registry. That was probably the last time I heard about a child with leukemia. And then I forgot and didn't do it. 

But I won't forget again because I added it to my 40 by 40 list. It replaced "Take the boys to the Galapagos Islands." (Have you ever priced such a trip? It's $20k, easy. I don't like nature that much.) 

Then I went to the Be the Match site and requested the kit to join. But I'm not telling you this to pat myself on the back, I'm telling you because when I went to the site, I found out that although it usually costs money to join, right now through June 22, it's FREE. 

That, my friends, is a sign.