Choices - Tuesday Morning, August 4

Everyday we make choices. Some are as simple as making coffee or not making coffee. and some choices seem simple and end up with huge complications.

I am facing many choices right now, as is Jim. He is definitely deteriorating. We have moved from a single anti-nausea medication to nausea medication every four hours. He is taking a sleeping pill, and is going to have to start taking more. Jim hates taking pills, so this choice to finally succumb to taking medicine to help him feel better, has been a really difficult choice for him. He has no control over his body or the cancer. He doesn't realize that things he has thought he has communicated to me, haven't been communicated, and I am making the choice to not say anything. Why distress him further; though it does terribly distress me.

I had developed a mantra for my life prior to Jim's diagnosis:

People before things,
Little people before big people,
and myself once a day.

I now think I need to continue it further;

People before things,
Jim before all,
with little people taking a close second,
and myself once a day.

I continue to narrow my life, from a big pond to a small river. This involves lots of choices, I am choosing to say "no" to things, because I want this time. I don't want to look back at this period in my life, and have regrets that I didn't narrow my focus, and lost the incredible beauty and bittersweetness of this moment of my life.

Little people look at the world and see the color, the brightness, the light, the laughter, the joy, they feel every possibility, and the dark spaces are small. As we get older we often focus on the darkness and the hardness, and forgot that life in its simplest form is a wonderful thing. I am slowing down my life to appreciate the color, the brightness, the beauty of the natural world, and the incredible capacity of the humans around me, who are supporting me daily, with love, kind words, kind deeds, loving thoughts.

I am making the choice to see beauty and grace in this time. The dark is there, but I am striving to stay in the light.

Love to all of you.

D