Sunday, July 5, 2009

Bittersweet

In the last several months...I have continually been reminded how fragile our lives are and how close to the brink of serious disaster at worst...and serious change...at best...we all are...at every given moment.

I guess this kind of started with the Sandra Cantu disappearance and murder last March...the little 8 year old girl in Tracy California who was abducted, molested, murdered, and stuffed into a suitcase and left in an agricultural drainage ditch where she was found by farm workers...the accused murderer is a female Sunday school teacher.

After having no traffic tickets in like 20 years or whatever I get two in one week...and a couple weeks after that go to the court house to pay my fines and hit this insane media frenzy surrounding the Cantu case and then actually watch the Cantu family enter the courthouse close up and personal. I wrote about it in my other blog here if you'd like to read that...
http://docsdoxology.blogspot.com/2009/04/surreal.html

So that is where I begin in this because it was surreal to me and actually had a fairly large and negative impact on me. I got...for just a few short moments directly...and overall maybe an hour total indirectly...very close to the flame and I felt the heat...of our press and the limelight of horrific and negative change...

That family...just weeks before that day...had no idea that this would be their life. A horrible act and event happened...and it acts as a pivot...and their lives go in a completely and wholly different direction.

Sometimes...this happens and the pivot is not horrible or evil. Sometimes...as when we start a new job or finish our education or start a business...maybe even win the lottery...whew wouldn't that be cool?!?....we have a pivotal moment and our lives are never again the same but it is a good thing.

Some times...and I dare say more often...the pivot is bittersweet. There is good and bad mixed in to the event and/or outcome of the event which we deal with. But our lives are changed just the same.

I am dealing with such pivotal change in my life currently and it is bittersweet. My daughter Harmony...was married yesterday and she spent her last night in her room under our roof...night before last. She said goodbye last night. Now...this is a cause of celebration and my wife and I are both very happy for her...it's an awesome thing...but it is hard for us to see her go...bittersweet...and Sarah...our 3 year old daughter is missing her sissy...even though she now has her own room all to herself...but she is by herself now too.

My son...is having Dr's at Stanford talk to him about a double lung transplant...within the next few months...and that means it could extend his life between 5-10 years and most of that first 5 years would be with a much different quality of life for him...no more treatments and oxygen tanks...and likely no hospital stays...unless he gets sick...in which case a common cold could kill him...because he will be on 25 medications that are trying to keep his body from rejecting the organs but also completely decimating his immune system. He says that he wants to climb Half-Dome in Yosemite and if he gets through the surgery and gets through the first year of healing....he could do that.

Bittersweet

Change is one of the few constants that we have and can count on. Sometimes...the change is wonderful...and sometimes it is horrible...but more often...as with so much in life...the reality is somewhere in the middle. So to me...it seems that the subject returns to creating a balance. When something is bittersweet there is quite a bit to be able to take from it and learn...which is one of the best parts...but there is a cost to it as well. All things have a cost...even those things that give the appearance as being free...all things have a cost.

I think that the cost of a thing sometimes...oftentimes...holds more meaning than we may realize at the time...and often we pay a cost without having thought out what that cost will entail and thereby sometimes...leaving us unprepared for paying that cost. But pay we must...for in all things there is a balance.

For me...the issue becomes one of awareness and preparation...but it is almost impossible to prepare one's self...to prepare for some things...so even in this it is difficult. But to try to be prepared for it and to try to be ready...which I often fail miserably at...I still try though...but the purpose is in the effort and not necessarily in the outcome...or said another way...it is the journey and not the destination...that is important and the point.

But even in this...it is bittersweet...

3 comments:

The Sarah Bear said...

Bittersweet - that is exactly the right word. People said, "You must be so excited" when I would tell them of the upcoming wedding. It's bittersweet. Now they say "How fun, a wedding" and I say, bittersweet.

I loved this post babe - very insightful. I guess I should choose to see more of the sweet than the bitter as there are many people that are facing changes in their lives that have no sweet in the moment at all.

I miss Miss.

photoasim said...

The shadows:

There are currently at least five murder trials, in some stage of development, before the S.J.C. D.A. office. Each one is made of tragic, disturbing and sorrowful events.
Don’t allow the pop-medias focus and attention to overshadow your thoughts, mood, life etc.

Selflessness:

Sad, how the heroics of a Father go unsung. Letting go, sheltering ones own feelings, influence and opinion…Who’s wisdom is placed before the alter of reasonable men? Selectively chosen for inclusion, for consideration. One stands helpless to perfect that which he has contributed to the form, since inception… “Oh, Grief!” … You cannot begin to serve an example…


To reach the pinnacle:

All assessment; I am prepared – to the extent that I can be -Emotionally, Physically, Psychologically.
Speculation will arise, why? If I should fail, fail to reach the top and be unable to return.

Am I content to hike with you towards the limit? Exposed, for all that we our, and our not? Too end, too limit before the top, at someplace in-between. This is fear?

Grab his hand…make way the time…and take this walk

The answer is OUT-THERE! Not in assessments!

GO AND FIND THE ANSWER!

Mother-in-law said...

A very moving writing. I love you so much for your insight and gentleness and for showing your feelings. Kisses