What If…
(photo courtesy of the book, “Cut It Off”)
Occasionally, when I have writer’s block, I will refer to several books I have, that suggest prompts, to open up my thoughts, which I am never short on. I currently have over 300 posts started sitting in my cue over the years. I begin them, get stuck, and then they sit in pergatory.
This particular prompt actually came to me, via TikTok, as I was not looking for anything in particular to write, like I said, I have enough started. But the prompt is timely, as it is partly factual, in that I will be turning 60 at the end of this year. Instead of having me reflect, the suggestion has me contemplate the absence of likely at least half of my life or more.
“Imagine suddenly waking up as a 60-year-old, with the last few decades of your life erased and no memories. What would you want to know first?” This actually goes along with another post I have in my cue, “tell me what it is like to have a life without cancer,” asked of anyone who has not been touched by any form of it, whether as a patient, caregiver, or friend.
You can understand the impact that cancer has on someone’s path through life, a total derailment of what you once thought would be. So that I understand, the prompt implies “no memory”, that would also mean I would not have any recollection of dreams and aspirations of what I would have wanted in life.
But I am turning sixty in just over two months. Forget doing the math, or what it says on my page, just read this sentence. It is surreal for me to think that as someone who got diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, cancer, at the age of twenty-two, would ever see their 60th birthday. Yet hear I am. Next month marks thirty-seven years since that diagnosis.
The prompt says “last few decades”, “few” implying three, which would engulf my entire cancer survivorship. So I would want to make it four decades, still leaving me two decades, just with no history of cancer. Which crossroads with my other cue, “what’s a life without cancer like?” Truthfully, I cannot imagine what I would want to know. Prior to my diagnosis, I can recall every detail of my life and where it was heading, and what was planned. But those plans changed after my diagnosis. With no memory, according to the prompt, what life would I have had. Fact is, I don’t even want to know.
(photo courtesy of “We’re The Millers”)
To be clear, I have no regrets, not one letter. I really could not imagine a different life for me, nor would I want to. I truly believe in fate, good or bad, that all things are already predetermined or inevitable. And just like the movie series “Final Destination,” I have no intention of ever tempting fate. What has been meant to happen in my life in the past, and tomorrow, I cannot change anything and would not want to.
The truth is, I have too much over these last few decades, to regret and lose what I have, as if never existed. My daughters being the most important part of my world are too important to me to regret the bad things I have experienced in my life. To have a life without having had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma would have changed everything, and not necessarily for any better. But what I do have, is what was meant to be. And the fact that I get another day tomorrow, and again after that, makes it all worth while.
Paul's Heart 