WOW!

I read Chad's story and I can't help but feel sad, angry, and a little bit of irony. I have struggled with many things in my life but this has most definitly be the one that tests the very foundation of my faith. Faith in God, faith in man, all of it. How can people treat each other that way. The way they did at the hospital that day. Then I think about the good stuff I have witnessed. About people reaching out to each other. How can both things be true? Its an age old question. We have to take the good with the bad right? Its free will and all that. We chose how we will be every day. We choose how we will treat others, how we will act, our attitudes for all that is worth. I try to choose what is right and sometimes I fail. We all fail. But people in a service to others, arent they supposed to be above the choice? Already decided for them when they choose to be a doctor, or a nurse or what ever. Maybe my standards are too high.

Emergency!

I went to the emergency room due to a high fever and the loss of my cognitive reflexes. Cognitive, thats a funny word. Let me look that one up, its an adjective, of cognition, the process of knowing in the broadest sense including perception, memory and judgement. Or, the defintion of my disease. Anyway, i am not allowed to get sick in any way, my symptoms will be ten fold of an ordinary situation i mean person. I was received in the E.R. by an overworked and assumidly an underpaid medical professional who literally screamed she hated her job and the place she worked. The place she worked is a newly built state of the art facility that practically runs itself. People hate change and hate the fact their raise was frozen for the purchase of a new M.R. I machine. Now i do not on any level expect flowers or dinner from any one in the field of medicine, BUT!!! i capitilized that for effect. I wonder where the compassion went???? We all have had JOBS, maybe we still do, but i dont change oil for a living and expect white hand towels in the wash room. I dont flip bugers and not expect to smell like a grease wagon when i go home. I, am a self proclaimed carpenter. I enjoyed it, i loathed it, i knew what to expect from it. Once we find our place in life and, we are not where we expected to be, what happens? I dont know. I do know that in general ,the publics in-ability to show compassion or graditude towards anything, has gone. We are a doomed society, armageddon? end of the world? perhaps not, but the end of things is inevitable. The end of things, from stone carvings to computers. The end of things. My E.R. visit included a seizure a mechanical bed with an alarm every time i farted, to another set of medical professionals who would rather complain about what dressing to put on their salad than answer another beckon from an ailing human being. I was bombarded by anitbiotics and saline, the ned. I am well again, for noe. It is getting very difficult for me to type fluidly, i do not know what to expect from my body tomorow, but a famous quote runs through my veins almost daily, "My disease can take my body, it can take my mind, but it can not take my soul". I will not give in to hatred ,greed, or anger.

Today

I like to tile my postings as "Today" because thats what it is for me. My wife unknowingly or un admitadly gives me little quizzes, do you remember she asks? or what movie was that actor in? I know that playing fantasy football with the fam is very exciting, yes i still enjoy hearing my sisters cry!!! ha! My son is also playing, but he is in that time of life that lives for the "in the moment". His competitive spirit lies behind, how many texts can i send in an hour, or minute. He knows i am only playing with him. But, the truth to the matter is, think about it, Fantasy football? When we were kids, our fantasy games outside in the old baseball field! I was Roger Staubach, or you were Mean Joe Green. You wanted to tackle the crap out of me! I wanted to throw that last second touchdown. Now? Well now is relegated to, let me stay logged on to Fantasy football and check it every ten minutes to see if my team is beating yours! Ugh! All kids not just mine are subject to it, different times. Changing times. I hear every one use this fancy word, cyclical. Everything is cyclical. I hope my child gets to hear his children clammering for the back door grabbing their dirty mud stained shoes screaming i want to be quatetback as the door slams behind them. And then silence. Not of an empty house but a group of children outside silently gathering information on the group in front of them as to which kid will be picked first and the one that will be picked last. Cyclical? No, good ole fashioned FUN!!!

The Breaths We Take.

I was driving down the road the other day and heard a song by George Strait. He sang about what we might find important in this life. He sang about the race that is life. I could not help but remember racing with Misti and Chad. We raced a lot. On our bikes, by foot, skates, to home base during tag. It was very importat to be first. To finish the race ahead of the others. The song on the radio had a slighty different take on it. I found the song to be very moving. Here is the chorus:

Life's not the breaths you take

The breathing in and out

That gets you through the day

Aint what its all about

Ya just might miss the point

Tryin' to win the race

Lifes not the breaths you take

But the moments that take your breath away

Our grandmother, our father's mother, just passed away We didnt really know her. I thought of this song as I sat at her funeral. How did the race take me so far away that I didnt even know my own grandma? How did I miss the point? I still dont really know my father. Will the same thing happen? Have I spent so much time focusing on my own hurt feelings, my own selfish desires that I have let moments that could take my breath away, get away? I dont know the answers to these questions and I may never figure it out. But I hope and pray that I am able to see more moments than I miss and that I give the racing a little break.