With that said, I shall move on. This has been a week of many things, not least of which is a lot of thinking and reflecting. Self reflection is great but it can also be difficult. I have had thoughts this week about where my life is at and where it may be going. I know I have talked about this times before but lately it just seems different.
Today was the funeral for SM, the young woman with CF who passed while waiting for her miracle. It isn't hard to sit here and think that today could have been me just months ago as I withered away on the ventilator waiting and hoping that these lungs would come. I was lucky enough to receive that gift, but as I sat there today in the beautiful church listening to the music, and the homily and watching the family grieve their loved one, I wondered who was luckier, me or SM. I realize we are both lucky and for some reason, which who knows if we will ever know, God has given us this path. For SM she is now standing and breathing freely, no tubes, no machines, no holes in her body, and free from the confines of this earth and it's limits on making her feel better. She is standing with her brother, free.
I on the other hand am breathing much more freely than six months or two years ago but I don't know what it is that I am suppose to be doing at this point, other than I feel some obligation, not a negative obligation mind you, but a duty or calling to make something of this life I am given for all those who have suffered with CF and lost the battle. I have been given the chance to live another day to do whatever it is that I please, within the confines of new lungs, rules and restrictions dictated to me by the medical community. Which means mostly I can do whatever except eat pomegranates, dirty fruit and veggies, not sit in hot tubs ever again, avoid sick people and a few other things that I probably wouldn't do anyway.
I am trying to figure out what my role is as an employee, a wife, a designer, and a transplantee. How does one feel so lost sometimes when they have been given so much and have so very much to be thankful for? I sometimes look at people when I am out and about, or when I am on Facebook and see people's posts about the cool things, or the mundane things they do and think how strange it is that all we do here someday means absolutely nothing when we are gone. Yet we are set here to do something with our life, learn, teach, explore, help, all of the above or none if we so choose but life is something and about something. We are here for such a short period of time and yet need to be able to make something of what we are given.
I guess that's why I think SM is sometimes lucky, she is free of these grips we inflict on ourselves, in our lives here on earth. We make a big deal out of unimportant things and not acknowledge the small things that mean the most. Do I wish I would wake up and just know what it is I am suppose to do, you bet. But then there are days like today when a 10 year old boy exhales in surprise at his birthday gift that I painted for him. I couldn't have been happier that he was so tickled with his gift. And maybe that's my gift to the world, one smiling face at a time, giving the gift of myself to others. God will provide, that being said, maybe his provisions are through love and his tool is me. Maybe what I don't think I know, I already do, maybe what I am searching for has already been found. Maybe it isn't a neon sign I am looking for but rather a whisper on a breeze. All I can do for today, is listen.
Rest in Peace Stacey!
No comments:
Post a Comment