I had planned on writing in today to say that I’m taking a month off from internetting. It just doesn’t serve me right now, it’s too easy to get sucked in to the computer in a moment of boredom. I have an iphone, which makes it all too much easier. I find myself in this hole of interwebs, with no idea of where the time has gone, and the feeling of waste. Is any of it REAL? It’s a screen I’m typing into, not a life. Internetting has begun to seem like Life, wasted.
So I planned to take a whole month off; I prepaid my bills online, wrote my appointments down on paper. I planned to delete the mail from my phone and disable the wifi. To shut down my laptop and put it in it’s sleeve and not look at it or open it for a month. I was really looking forward to it.
But I found out today that my dad has cancer. It’s very aggressive. He went to the doctor for headaches that he’s had for the past 2 months, and they told him that one of his lungs is completely collapsed (although he feels fine and climbs ladders for a living, no problem) and that he has a ping-pong sized tumor in his brain. They biopsied the tumor and it’s cancerous. They think the cancer started in his lung. They say the cancer is in his blood; it could attach anywhere now. He is having the tumor removed on Monday, in four days. They’ll talk about the rest (prognosis, ‘treatment’) then. With my dad’s encouragement, I’m going to wait until after Monday, when he has more info, before I fly back home to Austin.
In any case; I may need the internet to book a flight or to look up a phone number. For those things, I’ll use my husband’s laptop. This laptop is going away. People are more important; real, live people.
Sometimes we get arrogant and think someone is always going to be there, living on a sunny ranch in Texas, with the pond, the chickens, the goat, and the happy dogs. With a smile and a healthy body. But that isn’t always true.
Please, go hug someone you love for me.
Hi,
I have never commented on a blog before. I read your post and it really struck me.
18 months ago my Dad passed away from cancer.
Finding out he had it five years earlier really through me for a loop!! No one in my family had ever had it–I thought we were immune!!
It really does make you stop and think “am I appreciating everything I have and all the people in my life?” “what if I treated everyone as if it was one of the last times I will spend time them?”
As you said, give someone a hug and say whatever it is- even at the risk of sounding cheesy or sentimental. It is better to have said/done it than to regret not saying/doing it!!
The gift in our situation is we have the opportunity to say EVERYTHING we never did before it is too late. Remember we are blessed.
Tricia,
Thank you. I read this later and it really struck me.
Thank you for sharing.
-Erin