A week ago, my nephew celebrated his second birthday. Two years have passed since this amazing addition entered our family's live. An amazing boy. Full of light, charm and a love of life. Two years old; his whole life ahead of him. The whole world is open for him, and he just has to choose. Endless possibilities, unlimited paths.
And me? Arik Lavi sings, "Nothing is known, not a year and not a week…" I sit and think about this truism. "It happened when the path continued for me. It happened. I didn't know how much I wanted it." But it came. It is here. And it can be sensed. It is here in my body. It spread.
It is stage 4. It is an advanced stage. And it is a problem. From here I must live; from here I am obligated to live.
You
understand, in the beginning I thought that I was in the opposite
situation of my nephew, that for me there aren't infinite possibilities,
infinite paths. At the moment I have one path, one possibility – the war against metastasized cancer. I don't know when I will triumph, and I don't know when this will end. The million dollar question for me is what I should do in the meantime, during this fight. Because daily life continues. The sun shines, the day starts, and what? We don't actively
fight for 24 hours. So what do we do during the say?
And then it hit me – just like my two year-old nephew, I also face a world of endless possibilities. I just have to take advantage of them, and enjoy every moment. Like everyone else. There is not think that I can't do. Perhaps
my pace will be slower, and maybe there will be days that I will get up
and I will be weaker, and more tired, and feel this terrible nausea,
and the threatening infection in my mouth. And maybe it will hurt me a bit more. But there is no other choice. We have to continue with life, and for this reason we are obligated to continue living. In
the continuation of the song, Arik Lavi emphasizes, "You have to move,
to move…."….the movement, the action, it doesn't matter the pace, it is
full of meaning.
This disease takes a lot of energy from us. The struggle with it, with those around us, with the poisons in our bodies. There are many reasons not to get up in the morning and think about what I will do today for me, that will benefit me. There are many reasons to surrender, to live in bed in a bad mood and full of self-pity. But there is one reason, above all, that must give us the strength to get up and do – LIFE. A great gift that we are privileged to have. We still have infinite
possibility ahead of us, and we only have to choose what to do – open a business? An internet site? Learn a new language? Help others in different forums who are suffering from cancer in their own struggles? Read books and enrich our own personal knowledge? The list goes on and on and on…
Metastasized cancer is no picnic, and neither is the struggle against it…but it is not a death sentence. In my eyes, it is a LIFE sentence. Because
who of us can really say he or she does what they truly want to do, at
the pace they want to, in the place they want to, in the way they want
to? In certain situations, as much as we would really
prefer to give up on them, we've received a privilege that no one else
has – to live our lives to the fullest, as we see fit.
No one really knows how much time we have left on this earth. Most
of the time, we are busy chasing our own tails, and running…running as
fast as possible to achieve as much as possible, at as young an age as
possible…money, status, praise, success and what else…and until we stop
and ask ourselves what really makes us feel good and what we really want
to do, we're already deep into obligations that we cannot escape. And in this way our lives become what the world expects and wants of us, and not what we in our hearts truly want.
I have the privilege today of focusing on the things that are truly important to me. The things that I really want to do. To live as I always wanted. To L-I-V-E. To enjoy the moment, the here and now, every single hour. Because I don't know what will happen to me tomorrow morning. You understand, the cancer is in my body – that is a fact. Now the question is what I will do with it, other than fight a war against it. Death sentence, or life sentence. Because
at the end of the day, who among us doesn't want to return to be two
years-old, with endless possibilities ahead of him….
And
despite it all, at age 28, with an advanced stage of cancer, I also
think that all of life is still ahead of me…and endless possibilities
are still ahead. It is just a matter of perspective. Two months ago they discovered that I had metastasized breast cancer. And I decided to fight it and see it as a life sentence. Because, after all, "nothing is known, not a year or a week. We have to move, to move…"
