Lessons From the Edge

We have a choice.

Honestly! I started doing the Resident of the Week program for the benefit of the residents. I wasn't thinking about me. I wasn't being selfish. Honest!!!
Yet, I feel like I am the one who benefits most from the interviews. The joy I receive from meeting with each resident and learning their stories - gleaning from their wisdom - is such a delight to me. It's hard to believe I get paid for this! *wink*

This week, I interviewed D. D is 73 years old and is a charming man. He loves to sing and knows just about every song there is! Seriously. He sings along with everything. There is a sparkle in his eyes, and almost always a smile on his face.
D also has Cerebral Palsy and is essentially confined to a motor-scooter. He can't read and it is often difficult to understand his speech. He told me about a bike accident he had as a young boy which caused a neck injury and brought an end to many of his physical abilities.
D told me the doctor says eventually he'll be paralyzed. And he can see it progressing already. Numbness here and there. Loss of some use in his hands. It was sad to sit and listen to D talk about losing his physical abilities.
Yet, even as he spoke, I could still see the sparkle in his eyes.

We were almost finished with the interview, and I asked D my final question. "As you think back over your life, what would you say is the greatest lesson you've ever learned?" He looked right at me and said, "I could feel sorry for myself and my problems. But I have chosen to take life one day at a time."
Then I understood the sparkle and the smiles.
In spite of the suffering.
Faced with the option of being miserable or living, D has chosen to live. And so it is with each of us. We all have suffering of varying proportions. We all have the option of feeling sorry for ourselves. But we don't have to. We can live one day at a time, instead.

We have a choice.