What I Live For

The theme this week is to share an important quote and what it means to you. (Click on the pic to take you to others' quotes).

I guess I'm *loosely* following the theme, because in one book I read last Christmas there were two that really stood out. I'm sorry it's a bit lengthy, but I've bolded the quotes if you only have time to skim. It explains a bit about my journey with Tyler. Here you go:

I wonder if all people wish for a Walden, a philosophical retreat where the sounds of nature are the only accompaniment and meditation can rule supreme. A few years may be too much to hope for, especially for a wife and mother of a young family. A few minutes per day, maybe even twenty, now that’s realistic. Although I disagree with Mr. Thoreau on a number of points (that old people have nothing useful to tell us, the whole farmer thing, et al), I have found that reading Walden has me wishing for a new pair of eyes - eyes that can strip life down to its barest essentials, its plainest truths and revel in them. I know I will have to retrain my eyes to truly see and myself to truly live.

The section "What I Lived For" helped me to begin this process. Thoreau tells us, "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." We can allow the day to affect the quality in us – there is no difficulty in this, but to seize the day and will it to be affected by us, and so affect its quality accordingly – that is when miracles happen. This is truly living.

Just twelve short weeks ago, our family began a trek through days that seemed to grab us and shake us by the spirit. At the same time I learned that my cancer was back, our eldest son was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive tumor in his abdomen. Although he is disabled, this condition appeared out of nowhere. At the time, I weathered the news well, but as his outcome became more uncertain, I began to let the circumstance affect the quality within me and hope faltered.

My days began to affect me more and more, I was overcome with grief and a lack of understanding – how could something so terrible happen to such an innocent child, to his family? This was no way to live, and I realized it even more by reading that simple section in Walden.

What do I live for? What does my son live for? What does anyone live for? I asked these questions and realized that the answer is very simple. We live to learn, to stretch and to grow, and most importantly to Live life (yes, live it with a capital "L").

I love this quote:

"…I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

A resolve formed in me to overcome the despair and reached out to affect the "quality of the day" and I began to live deliberately. To do this is to take the bitter with the sweet and see the beauty in both.

"If you stand right and fronting face to face to a fact, you will see the glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career."

Standing off to one side, I might only see the glint of the blade that presents misery and grief; or on the other side, a denial of all that is happening, thus missing an opportunity to grasp the present moment. Facing it straight on, I can see that this is a time to cherish, a difficult time to be sure, but an amazing gift nonetheless. I have realized how important a role family plays in my life and the lives of my husband and children. I know how precious each minute is when the next might slip away as the last. Each minute spent with my son, holding him (even though he is 14 years old), talking with him, and loving him is deliberate.

In turn, my interactions with my husband, my children, and others are becoming more meaningful and real. I have shifted my focus from worrying about outcomes and relationships because it is only seeing people as objects or property. Instead, I am retraining my eyes to focus on each person that comes into my life and to love them genuinely for who they are, realizing the wants and needs they each have and responding with love. To love genuinely, this is what I live for.