The Unthinkable by Angie Ledbetter

Your doctor has given you the worst possible news: you have a fatal disease and a dire prognosis for life expectancy. Your fears are overwhelming. Already, you feel sick and “less than” your former self. How will you spend your remaining time?

Someone dear to me is facing these same questions, and I’ve already lost a few loved ones to cancer. So I ask myself from time to time, How would you handle it? What would you do with the rest of your life?

It’s not a subject anyone wants to think about, but what if you were forced to? I wonder if I would be strong and live with courage and hope? Or would I give up and mourn the loss of extra days? I can’t say for sure, but I hope I’d take the higher path, the harder road.

The thought of an untimely death makes me value each day on this earth even more. I try to fully live out each moment...no matter if it is from inside a concession stand doing school team volunteering, or visiting with someone I love. I try every day to let those whom I love know it. I force myself not to grouse over inconveniences or negative events. I want to see the goodness every day has to offer, and mark it by my noticing. I am grateful for early morning alarms ringing, and I am thankful each night when I put my head on a soft feather pillow.

A friend sent me a true story which helped cement my gratitude for life. I hope you enjoy it too, then pass it on to those you care about. Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer and only a few months to live. He is a popular professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His message is taken from his “final lecture” to beloved students. Pausch has three young children and an unbelievably heroic attitude. His appearance on Oprah has been downloaded over a million times, so just maybe his words are being heard: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469

Laughter from Choo-Choo Island by Angie Ledbetter

Trapped by a passing train today, I used the time to think about the things that make life good. What bubbled to the top of the list over and over again was laughter. Winning the lottery would be great, but that dream doesn’t sustain me on a daily basis like a good belly laugh. (And, boy, am I built for that!) Humor from unexpected sources and events are my favorite. You know – when someone says or does something hilarious from out of the blue, or when some slapstick craziness happens. Those hit my funny bone like a bolt of lightning. Apparently, my children love nothing better than observing these things too...especially if they involve their mother’s humiliation.

Over a year ago, walking back toward the car after an errand, all three of my kids were looking directly out of the front window when my heel caught in a sidewalk crack. Down I went, the most ungraceful hippo ever to walk on land...in a dress. They still howl to the point of tears whenever one remembers that horrible day. They recount and reenact the Great Fall, adding manufactured details of me flopping around on my back. The other story they relive (almost daily) is the time I couldn’t recall the name of an entertainment center, and finally sputtered, “...umm...Choo-Choo Island!” (The name of the stupid place is Celebration Station.)

Humor truly is the best medicine for whatever ails you, and nothing turns bad into good, or at least tolerable, than a good dose. Who knows? Maybe angels get their wings every time someone on Earth laughs, sort of like in “It’s a Good Life.” Today I’m thankful for the things and people who make me laugh, like these LOL-worthy videos: Oprah & Tom Cruise spoof - http://youtube.com/watch?v=UbEX4AM7fA8 and Mom Song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM . And a new definition I’ve added to my lexicon: Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any presidential candidate in the 2008 election year.