Life is hard.
Life is short.
Life is not fair.
But, life is also very good. So live life like you want to, like it means something to you, and you mean something to it.
Fifty weeks ago pretty much to the day I found out one of my close friends, Ashleigh Range (www.myjourneywithibc.blogspot.com) was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. To cut to the chase, it's been a year of chemo, radiation, surgery, hoping and praying for a miracle. It has not happened yet.
Ashleigh is one of those people who you first meet and go "Wow, I wanna be friends with her." And then naturally, because she's so warm and outgoing, you do. She's extremely intelligent (free-ride-to- MIT for LGO program smart) but also has the kind of warmth that a mother has that makes you gravitate to her and open your heart up to her (which is exactly what I did when we ran together three times a week in the sweltering Dallas heat). So naturally I was devastated, I mean, devastated... anxiety producing, awake in the night, kind of devastation when I learned of her diagnosis.
If you check her blog, you'll see a Godly woman who has the most amazing spirit of anyone you would ever meet. She's got a supportive husband and two very young children...and she's battling for her life, literally. She was recently told she had about two months to live (and that was roughly a month ago). She spent about two weeks in the hospital and then miraculously became healthy enough to go home for now. I was fortunate enough to have time off work, a supportive manager, and funds to buy a ticket and go visit her this week.
It's very difficult to explain what life is like in her household right now. It's a home of hoping and praying, but also of reality - that it may be a home without Ashleigh in the near future (at which point I think just becomes a "house" vs. a "home" for quite a while). It's a home with two young boys who need constant care and are a very happy distraction to a very difficult time. But it's a home with love, regardless of the situation. And I was so very, very, happy to get to spend time with all of them, especially Ashleigh. It's going to take a miracle to save her, but a miracle can.
So back to the essence of this post --- life is short, hard, unfair. But it's our life and it is what we make of it. So the next time you complain frivolously, or think something is unfair, irritating, etc, get some perspective. I have been working on that a lot over the past year and it's helpful.
Be grateful.
Be humble.
Be a good friend.
Be thankful.
But most of all, live your life.
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