I don’t know whether I should blow steam off on the world or count my blessings. I guess I should do the latter. Around me wonderful people die every day. Others live their entire lives with disabilities so great that it’s difficult to comprehend how they cope from day to day. Comparatively, I have nothing to complain about.
Until recently, my medical file consisted of maybe four pages and a few x-rays which served to prove that nothing was wrong with me. Now I’m faced with one physical crisis after another and feeling like my body is sabotaging me. Here, on the other side of the better half of 40, I’m faced with the prospect of living with a permanent disability. What I have learned in the last two years is that from the moment we are born we begin a journey of slow deterioration.
Some of us are lucky enough to live our entire lives having avoided the genetic pitfalls potentially inherited from our mothers and fathers, the follies of our youth, our poor habits as adults and every other mishap that could leave us relying on machines to communicate, to get around or even to live.
I’ve taught hundreds of children and raised one daughter (so far) with the hope of helping others avoid mistakes that might steal away their enjoyment of life as adults. Maybe I’m hypersensitive to the issue since I feel as though I’ve made so many unnecessary mistakes of my own. So many times I’ve been too stubborn to learn from others.
But not everything is avoidable or foreseeable. Even when a person lives the very best life style, there are no guarantees. We must simply persevere.
