I know it’s just the beginning of November, but, in my family, we cannot wait to be done with 2025, to put in the past a year dominated by illness and death, and too much heartache. Life and death. Some made it, some didn’t. Some are still fighting. All one can do is root for those who have a good chance of kicking death in the teeth. And it’s not as easy as it may seem. I don’t think we appreciate life as much as we should.
Take, for instance, a family funeral. There’s no question you gotta go, whereas a family celebration, well, I dunno, I’ll think about it. Two days ago, my younger sister invited us to a family gathering, a medieval-themed birthday party for her youngest daughter. A very original and kinda crazy idea only she could come up with. I’m not very creative and the whole thing seemed too much of a bother and I wasn’t going to go. They know me so they wouldn’t have been surprised. However, earlier today I went shopping for some stuff so I could go as a witch. Obviously, my face should be enough for the purpose, but I wanted to put some effort into it. The original plan was to make do with whatever clothing items we had around the house. Why spend money on a party? This is when it hit me. When the same sister was in the hospital, in a life and death situation, there was no question about money. Whatever she needs. Food, toiletries, and various other things she might need, seeing that she was in a state-run hospital, which aren’t exactly 5-star hotels.
If she’d listened to medical advice she’d be doing chemo every other week and I was mentally prepared to go to the hospital on the appointed days, obviously bringing whatever might give her some comfort. Now that she’s not doing chemo, but is instead hosting a party, how stupid is it for me to even consider whether it’s worth spending a few bucks for a costume? Like, yeah, since you might be dying I’ll spend some money on you, but if you’re just happy to be alive I’ll have to think about it.
At this point, there’s nothing we can do for this woman to speed up her recovery after her recent surgery but celebrate life with her and her children. Morale is the most important weapon when fighting the unmentionable C-word. Being alive until there’s no more life left. The words in my tattoo (pictured above) come from a Motorhead song and Lemmy did just that. Ignored the illness that was eating him, went on stage and performed until the end. My younger sister is just like that. She didn’t let a stupid tumor stop her enjoying life, nor did she pause her whirlwind life for the surgery. And now she has a good chance of beating the illness altogether. Hence, the need for a celebration of life going on.
If you’ve been following my daughter’s blog, you may have read @honeydue’s post about another sister of mine, the eldest in my complicated family tree. She passed three weeks ago, but truth be told she hadn’t been really alive in at least a decade. Probably more. She had just returned from the US after 34 years, so we were not very close. Her death didn’t register as painful, but only sad. A sad ending to a sad life. She rarely took pleasure in anything, but never failed to mention how everything is bleak, in her personal life or the world at large. For the past month or so, there’s a nagging voice in my head who keeps pointing out the huge difference in my feelings towards these two women, both half-sisters of mine. Yet, for the older one a few more years wouldn’t have made the slightest difference, an endless string of days spent in varying states of boredom. The younger one, on the other hand, I know to be quite capable of finding joy in the most mundane of things. When she’s not on some crazy endeavor, I know she’ll be happy to watch TV in the evening petting one of her many cats. A good reason to be happy to be alive, by all means.
Do we really understand how fragile life is? Do we really appreciate every good day we have?
