If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord your soul to keep.
If I knew it would be the last time that I see you walk out the door, I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for one more.
If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise, I would video tape each action and word, so I could play them back day after day.
If I knew it would be the last time, I could spare an extra minute to stop and say "I love you," instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.
If I knew it would be the last time I would be there to share your day, well, I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can let just this one slip away.
For surely there's always tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and we always get a second chance to make everything just right.
There will always be another day to say "I love you," and certainly there's another chance to say our "Anything I can do?"
But just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get, I'd like to say how much I love you and I hope we never forget.
Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike, and today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.
So if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today? For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day,
That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss that you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.
So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear. Tell them how much you love them and that you'll always hold them dear
Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay." And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Day by day...
For those of us who live with the reality of HIV, we all live in very different worlds. We can be found in rural villages, conservative small towns, and liberal big cities. Name a suburb anywhere in the world and we will be there. From slums to penthouses, street corners to prisons, we are everywhere.
It's not surprising that it can be hard to truly see eye to eye on things when we are looking, living and speaking from our own perspective. When it comes to the reality of living with this virus, we are the experts of our own experiences and past history. We catch glimpses of how other people live but we can never fully understand anyone else's reality. Even so, there are some basic things that we all have in common and uncertainty is one of them.
One difficult issue of this disease is the way its course reveals itself to us moment by moment, day by day, season to season, and ultimately... blood test to blood test. Some of us are living well with HIV, while others are not so lucky - but none of us can ever be quite sure of where we stand. A manageable infection can turn nasty overnight. We can be at death's door in springtime and doing well by fall. We can pay for our lives one year living happily and enjoying good health, and be without income and destitute the following month.
We exist at the mercy and on the whims of a virus, of doctors and nurses, of politicians and corporations. We never know how someone will react to our unwanted companion. We live with uncertainty every day. While there is no certainty for anyone in this world, those of us with this virus have that uncertainty in sharp focus. It follows us like a shadow, lurking in the corners, always there in the back of our mind.
Whether or not we publicly acknowledge it's existence, it is there. Even the most active, positive-thinking person among us would confess to feeling the cold tendrils of HIV and the uncertain future that is our life. It is the strangle hold of these tendrils that our positive, uplifting thinking helps to keep at bay. Some days, it can be exhausting work just keeping the light on directly overhead so that no shadows may fall, knowing that just beyond the light the tendrils are waiting.
We struggle to find words to adequately describe this life. Manageable. Chronic. Terminal. My personal term is "a severe chronic illness with terminal tendencies". We don't know into which terminology we will fall until it's too late and we are falling, or until we have taken that particular pill, battled an illness or infection, lost that job, or fought through a deep and dark depression. We hope and pray the term manageable applies to us to us personally and have a sense of failure if it does not. We feel failed by the drug companies who promised us mountains, but instead gave us buffalo humps, skinny arms and legs. We feel failed by our own bodies and by each other. We feel failed by the uncertainty of it all.
It is because of this all pervasive uncertainty that I doubt we will ever collectively agree on the terminology to describe our lives with this illness. For myself, I try to balance hope with pragmatism. A pessimistic optimist, if you will.
So, for today anyway, I choose to say that having HIV infection is having a living death sentence. I'm living to the best of my abilities while an uncertain future coils expectantly in the shadows. I hope I can keep the light overhead for a long time to come, but living with the uncertainty is a daily challenge. Yet in some weird way, I feel blessed by it all, for I have learned to live the day, discovered what is truly important, and while on this journey, met folks who have become wonderful friends. God certainly works in mysterious ways... Peace to you.
It's not surprising that it can be hard to truly see eye to eye on things when we are looking, living and speaking from our own perspective. When it comes to the reality of living with this virus, we are the experts of our own experiences and past history. We catch glimpses of how other people live but we can never fully understand anyone else's reality. Even so, there are some basic things that we all have in common and uncertainty is one of them.
One difficult issue of this disease is the way its course reveals itself to us moment by moment, day by day, season to season, and ultimately... blood test to blood test. Some of us are living well with HIV, while others are not so lucky - but none of us can ever be quite sure of where we stand. A manageable infection can turn nasty overnight. We can be at death's door in springtime and doing well by fall. We can pay for our lives one year living happily and enjoying good health, and be without income and destitute the following month.
We exist at the mercy and on the whims of a virus, of doctors and nurses, of politicians and corporations. We never know how someone will react to our unwanted companion. We live with uncertainty every day. While there is no certainty for anyone in this world, those of us with this virus have that uncertainty in sharp focus. It follows us like a shadow, lurking in the corners, always there in the back of our mind.
Whether or not we publicly acknowledge it's existence, it is there. Even the most active, positive-thinking person among us would confess to feeling the cold tendrils of HIV and the uncertain future that is our life. It is the strangle hold of these tendrils that our positive, uplifting thinking helps to keep at bay. Some days, it can be exhausting work just keeping the light on directly overhead so that no shadows may fall, knowing that just beyond the light the tendrils are waiting.
We struggle to find words to adequately describe this life. Manageable. Chronic. Terminal. My personal term is "a severe chronic illness with terminal tendencies". We don't know into which terminology we will fall until it's too late and we are falling, or until we have taken that particular pill, battled an illness or infection, lost that job, or fought through a deep and dark depression. We hope and pray the term manageable applies to us to us personally and have a sense of failure if it does not. We feel failed by the drug companies who promised us mountains, but instead gave us buffalo humps, skinny arms and legs. We feel failed by our own bodies and by each other. We feel failed by the uncertainty of it all.
It is because of this all pervasive uncertainty that I doubt we will ever collectively agree on the terminology to describe our lives with this illness. For myself, I try to balance hope with pragmatism. A pessimistic optimist, if you will.
So, for today anyway, I choose to say that having HIV infection is having a living death sentence. I'm living to the best of my abilities while an uncertain future coils expectantly in the shadows. I hope I can keep the light overhead for a long time to come, but living with the uncertainty is a daily challenge. Yet in some weird way, I feel blessed by it all, for I have learned to live the day, discovered what is truly important, and while on this journey, met folks who have become wonderful friends. God certainly works in mysterious ways... Peace to you.
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