Now Voyager

To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. ~ William James~

If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance. ~ Andrea Boydston ~

John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."

Truer words were never spoken.

It certainly was true in his life. A gifted and immensely popular musician, poet and artist, Lennon had found his soul mate in Yoko Ono, and together they had a healthy, beautiful son. Life was good, and the future looked brighter than ever. Book and movie deals, new recording contracts, gallery exhibits - those were their plans.

Until life happened.

On a cold, drizzly evening in New York City, December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his Central Park apartment by a crazed fan.

We're all familiar with names of other well-known people who seemed to have their whole lives ahead of them, whose futures held great promise but were cut tragically short. Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr. are two of the most obvious examples.

The actor Christopher Reeve was surely making other plans when he was thrown from his horse during a riding exhibition in 1995. Life happened in one terrible moment, and he went from being the man everyone knew as the movie hero Superman to a quadriplegic dependent on others for every breath he took. He died from the combined and long-term effects of his injuries nine years later.

Nearly three thousand Americans were making other plans when they went to work or boarded airplanes on September 11, 2001. Their lives ended that day, and the lives of countless thousands of others, their families and friends - who were also making other plans - were forever changed by the nightmare now known simply as "9/11."

All of these people and the tragedies that befell them made headlines around the world either because of the celebrity status of those involved or the sheer enormity of the event. But life happens to ordinary individuals making other plans every single day, quietly and with little or no warning, in doctors' offices and clinics and hospitals around the world. Someone says a single word - "cancer" or "terminal" or "coma" or "inoperable" or any one of thousands of terrifying possibilities - and someone else's life changes forever.

If you're reading this, it's probably because you are one of those for whom life has forever changed because of some circumstance beyond your or anyone else's control. There is some measure of comfort in reminding ourselves that no one gets off this planet without his share of such circumstances. Give yourself time to grieve, focus on slow, deep breathing to calm and center yourself, then begin to move forward again, this time using the new tools and techniques you have learned at such dear cost.

And now begin to really live. No prissy, half-hearted living like you were living before. That wasn't really living, and that you doesn't exist anymore. No putting off dreams until tomorrow. Carpe diem. Carpe diem. Carpe that diem now.

Go live your life. Become who you know you're supposed to be. No holding back this time.In the words of Walt Whitman, "Now voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find."

And don't you dare say it's too late. If you're reading this, it's not too late. It's only too late for the people who didn't wake up this morning.

Live out loud. Be outrageous. Love fiercely. Laugh and cry at the sheer beauty of it all. And thank whatever god you believe in that you have another chance to get it right.

Every day, you get another chance.

Dear God, thank You for allowing me to wake up breathing this morning and for one more chance to get it right. Today I will begin to become the person you created me to be.

Amen
Roger and Kathy Cawthon
The Cancer Crusade

email: cawthons@thecancercrusade.com
web: http://www.thecancercrusade.com