We Shall Return

The last big trip we made before we got the diagnosis was to my birthplace, Memphis, with the family newlyweds.We stayed at the Peabody, had cocktails in the lobby while watching the ducks parade around and then suppered at the Rendezvous just down the alley, past the dumpster. We almost didn't make it though. It was around this time of year and a spring storm chose the Memphis airport to be the tunnel for the front that was coming through.  It was the rockiest landing Pat said he'd ever endured and with his business international travels, he'd made quite a few landings in suspect weather.  We looked at each other and said, "Well, if this is it, then we're good to go." and held hands.  I felt a little sorry for our daughter and her new husband, because they were going to miss out on the marriage rollercoaster, but it turns out, they didn't even miss out on the ribs.

Before Pat got so sick, I used to pray he would just get happy; be content with his life and not work so hard that he could barely move at night.  I didn't want him to get ALS, but after the initial horror of it all, he has become happy; happier than I have ever known him.  He enjoys sitting around with me, watching the grands parade through the house and planning the next book he's going to read.

There was an article in the paper awhile back about a woman who after being diagnosed with a terminal illness (I'm thinking it was stage 4 cancer) became happy for the first time in her life. The woman in the article asks, "why did I have to be threatened with death to become happy?" It turns out this is not an unusual phenomenon.

 For those of us familiar with the TV show HOUSE, you may remember the episode where the crippled curmudgeon tries to expose the happy cancer kids for the frauds they are.  Of course, it didn't work.  They really were happy.  Not happy to be sick, but happy children who happened to have that horrible sword dangling overhead.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day that we who go to liturgical churches are smeared with oily palm ashes and reminded that "we are dust and to dust we will return."  I'm wondering if this liturgy about death is really to get our tushies in gear and to make us remember to live.

Here's a link to the liturgy we will use today.

http://www.liturgies.net/Lent/AshWednesday.htm
http://www.liturgies.net/Lent/AshWednesday.htm