May 14, 2008

• i don’t want to be alone.

  alex and i are approaching a year of wedded bliss, and almost five more of a near picture-perfect relationship.

  

  even still, my mind occasionally wanders to possibility of eventual loneliness.

  allow me to elaborate.

  i’m the type of person that can read or watch something, and instantly imagine how that situation would impact my life. as a child of divorce, i’ve seen what broken homes can do to a family. despite this, i don’t worry about being left for another woman. i don’t even worry about being left “just because” … at least, i don’t worry about it anymore. however, i contemplate other “what ifs” from time to time … 

  life isn’t fair
  God works in mysterious ways. i have no idea how he chooses how and when a person will die, nor do i want to. that is his Divine right as the Creator to decide. that said, it still doesn’t make it fair when a person is killed in the prime of their life.

  freak accidents: a daddy-to-be dies on a late night run to satisfy his pregnant wife’s hankering for ice cream. a woman killed on the way to her daughter’s dance recital.

  car crashes. bullets. explosions. war. terrorism. earthquakes. floods.

  the randomess of it all is up to chance, but it’s one you take each day to live.

  take randy pausch, for example.

  

  he was dealt a bittersweet hand, to be sure. after years of being single and building his dream career, he married the love of his life and had three children. just as he was realizing his own meaning and purpose in life, he was given a concrete death sentence in the form of incurable cancer. with only months to live, he is scrambling to get his family’s affairs in order while struggling to stay healthy as long as possible.

  every few days, he posts his status on his website. he is very candid about his progress: his kidneys are slowly failing; his tumor count is in the hundreds, increasing daily. how can he have the strength to prepare for death? equally as curious: how can his wife, jai, find the strength to live when part of her life stops? the strength is in everyone, i’m sure, but to be able to draw from it —and continue to be grateful — is the challenging part.

  a fate worse than death
  memories are made to be shared and remembered. i am terrified to think that my life (and the lives around me) would be forgotten when the moment passes — that could be why i write and document as much as i do. i want to remember everything, and i want my family to be able to do the same. i couldn’t even imagine forgetting my first kiss … the way alex looked when he proposed … my wedding day … the day i got my first “real” job. losing memories, to me, is a fate worse than death.

  seventeen years ago — and after almost forty years of marriage — sandra day o’connor‘s husband discovered he had alzheimer’s.

  

  for john o’connor it began quietly, with memory difficulties that became progressively serious. last year, it was reported that he had forgotten his wife and fell in love with someone else. their son was quoted as saying that “for mom to visit when he’s happy … visiting with his girlfriend, sitting on the porch swing holding hands,” was a relief to her.

  the thought of watching my husband carry on day-to-day — not only with no memory of the decades spent together, but to see him spend it with another woman — just crushes me. as far as i have read, she doesn’t speak to him about their past to avoid confusion. she is a much braver and stronger woman than i.

  another story that has affected my thoughts come in the form of the fictitious novel/movie “the notebook.”

  

  the heart-wrenching tale centers around noah and allie, as he tries desperately to remind her of the love she had forgotten due to alzheimer’s. each day, he reads “the story of their love”  — which she had put together before her memory loss — to her. in the end (and this differs from the book, i know), she remembers him for the final time, and together they drift away to a peaceful death in each other’s arms.

  alex and i watched the movie together a few years ago. we both cried, a lot. it affected our thoughts in different ways, but we came away from it with a joint-resolution. we promised that:

  1. we would always remember each other, if even for a moment.
  2. we would die at the same time, at the ripe old age of 100 and 102, respectively.

  child-like promises that we may not be able to fulfill — but in a weird way — it comforts us both to know how we picture our ending … together.

  

  • 3:26 pm
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