A Living Will is a legal declaration of the way you'd like your health care to be administered in case you are not able to talk or make yourself understood.

You are supposed to write down, exactly, the means you'd like to be taken to either extend your life or maintain your life or bring you back to life if so possible.

Nurses ask patients all the time about their Living Wills: DO they have one? What does it say? Who has a copy of it? Does their doctor know about it? Does their next of kin know about it? Was it notarized, witnessed or handled by a lawyer? Most of the answers are "no" or "I dont know". If a patient really does have certain wishes and has taken the thought and time to write them all down and have it witnessed, most of the time this document is in a locked desk or safety deposit box or safe. Most of the time, come the end or near end of life Living Wills are rarely looked at or encouraged.
The best thing you can do is tell the person who will have the charge of your life your wishes and hope they will carry them out, then write it down, have it witnessed and have that designated person keep a copy just in case they need proof you really do want those tubes removed or that pillow held down over your face (no one will do that though)

But how do you know? You THINK you know, but really how do you?

Ms. Ethel is a 81 pound, 93 year old black lady who sits in her wheelchair 5 hours a day held fast and tight with a long black strap. She pulls the crocheted wrap around her shoulders while singing church songs. She smiles constantly and laughs out loud at nothing at all. She enjoys peas and exhaults thrills and wonder when they roll down her pretty ironed blouse. She holds her daughter's hand and if her daughter is at Wallmart, she holds the aides hand and thinks she is her daughter. She tells her about the childhood she didn't live and probably her daughter didn't either. She laughs again and sings and delights when I come to visit. Her Ensure is delicious, and her strained carrots are lovely. Her arms are thin and long and her fingers were meant for a fine piano. She is dooted upon...she is lifted and bathed and oiled. She is fed and cooked for, she is turned and dressed and hugged. She has the capacity to learn nothing or do anything for herself yet she is the happiest person I meet in a day. "Bye, bye, come again"..she says and I can't help but smile. She remembers nothing and probably makes up half of what she says yet she makes everyone else around her happy.

I wonder what Ethel would have put in her living will if she was ever made to make one up?

Two months ago she was walking and going up and down the stairs. One day she was listless and not responding to questions or conversation. Her eyes were open, she was not smiling. Her daughter rushed her to the hospital to find out she had a GI bleed and an irregular heart beat..the hospital doctors worked on Ethel as if she were 40 years old, age not changing their duties or habits or obligations. Her daughter was worried. After 2 months in the hospital she "coded"...she lost her heart beat and her breath stopped. She was revived and rehabilatated to the point of being able to go home. She was no longer able to walk or bear her own weight. She cannot get out of bed or take herself to the toilet and if she has to go and no one is there she just goes and she sings.

She sings and brightens many people's days. Her daughter feels she is fulfilling a duty. No one is in pain. They have plenty of help, in fact, Ethel employees 2 people.

I wonder what would be different if Ethel had a Living Will? I wonder how it would matter?

next time...I'll give you another story...

I just read the book "Into The Wild". I really liked it. I think anyone who is adventurous or has kids as such or sons, especially would enjoy reading it.

I am in the middle of watching the movie...I saw the first half. It is like the book but the book was better. Isn't that usually the case?

Many people can relate to the main character...a man, a kid really, running from society, running from the world, trying to survive off the land with a few rations, a couple of pens and paper and books.

I can relate ..the respite quiet allows, of being free from the words and actions of other people, being surrounded by trees and snow and animals and dripping, trickling water. Here, in the real world, I wonder daily how the world will keep on spinning in the years to come, I wonder why no one seems to have much sense. I escape, as many others do too, to the gym, to my books, to my family, to movies. I forget in the warm bath, the invigorating ocean, and the graceful spritz of my favorite perfume. I calm when looking at vintage dresses and funky pallazzo pants.

Then Hiliary's face is yet again on the TV monitors at the gym, NPR radio is talking about global warming and how some nut(s) is trying to convince the administration to officially make the polar bear the first animal endangered directly related to the melting ice and the warming grounds. Work makes me feel like a rat on a wheel except for the few moments with patients who seem like angels or cuddly warm blankets. Chris McCandless (the books main character) wanted to escape thoughts, schizophrenic tendencies, manic behavior, he wanted to control integrity and clear thinking. He wanted freedom and complete joy. I can see how deep breaths of frozen air can cleanse your pumping heart and blood stream to make you think you've made it to nirvana.

I was in awe that non-native to the land, a non-Alaskan can actually live like that...I wouldn't have survived one day. I would have eventually missed some people, not minded my husband's noise or my kids silly talk of the cars they are buying or the places they will live. I would not have been as strong. I'd cave in a minute, I'd never be able to eat a squirrel. I'd live on fish..that may be a possibility but then I'd have to hike only in the summer. I liked reading about it, though. I loved the quotes...so many pages are dog earred...he read Thoreau and Proust and all the famous pioneers and he lived their words. I know that wish.

I am now reading "Love in the Time of Cholera"...such an exquisite book my soul aches and clutches when I read it. In the beginning I could feel myself chasing a parrot through the garden as gracefully as the characters ...and I don't even like birds. The characters even die with awe.

So, for now, as life is still bothering me, my job is still the one I think daily about leaving, I read and wonder about these people who defy mainstream life, live against odds, make their own way on their own terms, enduring eating squirrels to reach their goal. I just want uninterrupted hours to write and read. "Just" is the operative word there...just is about 12 hours a day. At almost 50 years old, I realize all wishes and dreams are hard, they take dedication and energy to fulfill and really, no one else cares about them but the dreamers themselves.

from the book "it is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. ....raw youth...mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure gap ridden logic.".....

well isn't that just about what is wrong with being older and wiser?????I guess we are safer???? But then again, we need to think clearly in order for the world to bother us ever the more...

from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience": "That government is best which governs least". WHEEEEEEWWW, at least someONE had some sense.

"I grew up exuberent in body but with a nervy, craving mind. It was wanting something more, something tangible. It sought for reality intensely, always as if it were not there....."

(don't we all think that sometime)

"But you see at once what I do. I climb." (John Menlove Edwards, "Letter from a Man")

what do the rest of us do about it? THose of us who crave but don't climb?

some of us don't care, don't think about it, can't find the time to wonder....
I go from wishing I was a "climber" to wishing I was a non thinker.

anyway..the book was really good.

"But we little know until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgement forbid as it may" (John Muir)

for the rest of us that which is uncontrollable may be something else ..another urge or need or obsession...and our glaciers and torrents are inward...swirling.

and this one took my tears from my eyes and poured them all over the eliptical machine I was on when I was reading it...

"He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didn't notice". (Donald Barthelme, "The Dead Father")

"I wished to acquire the simplicity, native feelings and virtues of savage life to divest myself of the factitious habits, prejudices and imperfections of civilization; ....and to find, amidst the solitude and grandeur of the western wilds, more correct views of human nature and of the true interests of man. The season of snows was preferred, that I might experience the pleasure of suffering, and the novelty of danger." Estwick Evans

"Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works. It not only offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation." (Roderick Nash)

one more quote

from doctor zhivago
"Lara walked along the tracks folloinga path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped, and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower scetned air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer toher than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moemnt she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was HERE ON EATH TO GRASP THE MANING OF ITS WILD ENCHANTMENT AND TO CALL EACH THING BYT ITS RIGHT NAME, OR , IF THIS WERE NOT WITHIN HER POWER, TO GIVE BIRTH OUT OF LOVE FOR LIFE TO SUCCESSORS WHO WOULD DO IT INHER PLACE."

"Oh how one sihes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or IN THE WORDLESSNESS OF LONG, GRINDING LABOR, OF SOUND SLEEP, OF TRUE MUSIC, OR OF A HUMAN UNDERSTANDING RENDERED SPEECHLESS BY EMOTION!"

Finally McCandless seemed to come to the conclusion that "happiness only real when shared".

I have what they call “a bad memory”. I forget things. What times were my kids born? What did I confess to at my first penance? What was my favorite teacher’s name? Who taught me to ride a bike? I cried at my first penance, I remember that, because I was scared to death of the priest. I shouted out my sins for the whole church to hear only to find out it was not my turn, the priest was at the opposite window and I had to repeat it all again while my teacher forced her way around the curtain to tell me to lower my voice. I was shouting because I couldn’t hear the priest and therefore, I thought, he couldn’t hear me…I didn’t realize he wasn’t even present during all this humiliation. I remember that! I was in first grade, about 7 years old. I think. I really don’t remember.

I do remember loving Religion class and Social Studies and English (the part where we read and talked about books) and the wind in my face and how exciting it was as I rode my bike through the traffic of the city all the way uptown to East River Drive. I remember how bad I wanted to learn how to drive. I’d day dream of the freedom I’d have, the places I’d go, the independence I’d feel. I remember how I felt but not the details of names and dates and times. I am someone who lives for details but cannot force a care about certain pieces of nonsense. I’ll never forget holding my babies, nursing them and tickling them. If you ask me now I may not automatically recall the years of their births…

I remember saying my name over and over with RN next to it. I remember calling myself Mrs. Louis….. way before I was a Mrs. I remember my daydreams and my days in the soft grass and sun, the cold winters with snow so high we were “stuck” unable to move and the way the piles of snow actually made us warmer, and cozier, the walks with snow gear on. Those things I remember…

I know I feel happy and sad in the same minute. I feel angry and proud and beautiful and unattractive all in the same day. I’m allowed to. I’m allowed to tell you all about it too.

How did I come to feel these things and why? Where did the feelings come from, how did I develop the opinions and point of view I’ve come to defend and shout about. Of course all of it is a compilation of experience.

I distinctly remember arguing with my father over Frank Rizzo. I remember feeling upset that the police seemed to be unfair in their treatment of certain criminals. I remember feeling like Frank was a phony. I remember saying how the poor need help, and the needy need help and I hated to hear any kind of racial slur or derogatory name. I hated that the people I knew loved Rizzo because he was Italian. I hated that. But THAT was all at my start, I was a very young 14 at the time of those discussions. I was not mature enough to understand the convoluted ways of government and police work and the way people lived and this was the foundation of me wanting to know more, wanting to know everything about how different people ticked, and how different their ticking, how they made decisions, how they treated each other, how they motivated themselves and how they got into trouble or how they elevated themselves from their own beginnings. I remember feeling like joining the peace corps or at a younger age becoming a nun and working with the poor and indigent people. Funny how I feel like I sometimes do that now and I hate it and then again sometimes I love it. I remember feeling upset that my family would not consider me marrying or even dating someone outside my own faith or culture. They were so narrow-minded! Oh…it drove me nuts. Now, years and years later, my poor aunt, who married a really nice Irish guy…we still remember my grandmother calling him “the Irish”. What is wrong with us? The man has a name!

Time goes by, experience and life, and my world and opinions got smaller. I don’t mean I am prejudice…I am just much more selective. I’ve come to understand this as not something I reject but something I take pride in, something I want to preserve. I’d love my kids to marry nice Italian girls just like myself! I’ll probably cry many times over their choices. Of course, I want them to be happy. Above all else? When will they learn? But I want them to be proud and indigenous. I want them to feel the importance of something that maybe doesn’t seem exactly right but really isn’t in any way wrong.

If it happens that their soul will only be filled with a certain amount of difference then we’ll have to deal with it at that time. Can I be supportive? Have I turned into my father? My mother? My husband? Where is SP?

I searched and researched and stared and intruded. I remember being shocked and dismayed at my findings. Of course, it started with my own family, then neighbors, then friends, then co- workers, then other students, then patients, and then strangers. I still search and reach to help myself understand how we are all so very much alike and then, beyond that hair of a line, we completely differ.

In my own religion and culture I find freaks. I tell you, Freaks!

As I matured and studied and processed information and experiences, I realize all things happen for a reason. I realize all the advertising as well as the politicians reach for our sameness and grab it and manipulate it. WE cheer when we hear something we’re familiar with, something that makes us feel comfortable. Sometimes what makes us feel comfortable is a lie, or just something we are used to but it isn’t the very thing we should be made to cheer about, it isn’t the truth, it isn’t anything but a detail we are being programmed to remember, a piece of nonsense, something that is made to sound right but really isn’t very right at all. I kind of oscillate between wanting to control my world and feeling too controlled by the world around me. I really want to be able to think my thoughts clearly and with intelligence. And I want the advertisers to leave me alone, stop trying to pull those memories out of me just so I’ll buy that sweater (of course I do and then I feel nuts), I want the politician to stop saying stupid things that tug at hearts, hearts too shallow to feel the coldness of the tug. I want the religious and the leaders to help us all help ourselves. I’d rather do it myself, rely on myself, feel proud of myself and then in return feel proud of my mentors, teachers, leaders..those people who sometimes seem so off, but are wise and experienced beyond my years. I’d love it if more people felt their own specialness; pride in themselves, pride in the country we collectively live in and complain about and freely talk and complain about..and that is all O.K.

I remember the first thing we did in grade school, in the morning. We stood. We stood and prayed; we folded our hands in traditional prayer style. The standing and the folding of our hands, so straight, so exact, took effort. We were tired. It was 8:00 in the morning. I remember standing, the sun shining through those cold aluminum windows, shades half pulled. I remember wanting to put my knee on the seat of my desk to rest a bit but wouldn’t dare. The nuns used to walk around with the pointer in their hands then. After the prayer, we stood and shifted to the right of the room, the corner where the American flag stood on a pole. My hand found my school emblem over my heart. I felt it’s beat and I recited The Pledge of Allegiance. I remember feeling proud of myself at enunciating indivisible. Surely, I felt pride. “With liberty and justice for all”, I stirred. I was so young, yet remember wondering, and feeling sure.

Later in the day, we studied the world. I saw the pictures of the poor kids in Africa eating with their hands, the flies all around them. I remember feeling so safe, so cared for as that pointer went around the room and those eyes peered out from the tight habit watching and waiting for us to make a wrong move. We weren’t scared. We were proud of ourselves. We were proud to get through the day without being hit and when we got that gold sticky star on a test we felt true happiness. I wondered if the nuns had hair. Did they wear clothes under those blue uniform habits? Did that head garment hurt? No wonder they were grumpy. Until I met Sister Damian in high school, she wore regular clothes and was sooooo happy all the time and didn’t even own a pointer. I knew it! It is always all about the clothes.

Every time I was told a story about an American being “overseas” helping the poor or the sick or the needy or the tortured, I felt pride. I remember crying over the pictures of the soldiers. I remember praying for them. I remember my family whispering about a family member getting out of the war, dodging his turn. I thought I was supposed to think the same thing, and I do, I would not run my sons right over to the nearest sign up booth but then again I know the pride I feel when I see a soldier, brave and strong and so unselfish and I feel something stronger, something better. I feel safe again. I feel proud. I want to help too.

As I get older the moments of American pride stack along with the awe I feel towards my family and the memories I’ve made over the years. I remember my alma mater. I remember my neighborhood and high school friends. I don’t remember everyone’s name but I remember what I need to …those experiences that educated me to have the opinions and concerns I have today. None of which are for the sake of being liked, or elected or feeling beautiful. It’s all about doing what is necessary, what is right and what is good. What is good for the world or America isn’t necessarily anything to do with what is happening to me in my little world. It is a much bigger, deeper soul.

How can anyone be first proud of being American as an adult? And HOW is that very person in the position to maybe help lead that very NATION? It’s absurd.

There is nothing more beautiful than a dirty, hard fighting soldier holding an American flag, or communities coming together to help in a disaster. The freedom to feel what we do and say what we want almost in any situation is our right and liberty. I watch these ongoing elections and debates and I get knots in my stomach with the lines we are being fed like old grain being shoved down the throats of old, dumb cows. Shall we wag our tales just because we’re being fed something?

I am not that old, nor all that wise but the government cannot control anything in a well mannered and efficient way by giving little to those that have big needs or by making promises that only a young, naïve child would understand to be right or for the common good. They need to teach us how to cope, they need to guide us towards our own pride. They need to stir motivation…for us to make America even better. It shouldn’t be for them to convince us to elect them to take care of us. What good will that do any of us in the long run? We need to think about the long, big, wide picture.

I want to work hard and keep the money I make for my family. I want to have choices in the health care I decide to utilize and I want those health care providers to cater to me, to take care of my needs, not be beguiled by red tape and control. I want to be healthy enough not to need so many medications. I want to feel safe and proud. I want to choose the education I feel is the best for my children without having to pay astronomical prices for it. I want a President who felt his or her pride from childhood. I don’t want someone who is on the way up the learning curve. I want control and high ethics. I want leaders who will help us all raise our standards, our expectations of ourselves, and our intelligence and our morals. I don’t want extreme tolerance. I want safety, pride, allegiance and comradeship

That isn’t too much to ask of the greatest nation in the world!

Is it too much to ask of ourselves?

I don’t remember everything, for sure, but what I do remember are the things I’ll never
forget.

"Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace . . . Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" Patrick Henry

"[i]To sell oneself to the highest bidder is bad enough - but not to even meet ones own reserve!" Rosalia de Bringas, "La de Bringas" Benito Perez Galdos


Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
The writing of The Declaration of Independence…read it

Landing on the moon…remember the planting of The American Flag on the MOON!!!!!

From the movie Great Moments in America: (from a review of)

A New Beginning (1900-1929)" opens as the first human voices are transferred via radio waves, electricity lifts industrialists such as J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford to heights of immense power, the Wright brothers soar aloft, the Titanic capsizes, and World War I unfurls. "Part Two: The World at War (1930-1945)" commences with a sobering flashback to the Great Depression and crawls ahead into the second global conflict that brought the Allies and the Axis powers to each others' throats and ended in one of the planet's most devastating genocides. Opening at the end of World War II, "Part Three: The End of Innocence (1946-1963)" moves ahead in time to the dawn of the Cold War, the brink of the Cuban missile crisis, the rise of apartheid, the civil rights movement, and the Kennedy assassination that brought America to its knees and permanently robbed the country of innocence forever. In the second half of this documentary, "Part One: A New Voice (1964-1975)" runs the race to the moon, watches the development of transistor television, provides a sobering look at the R.F.K. and Dr. King assassinations, looks on with horror as Charles Manson and his cult bring the love era tumbling to the ground, and watches Richard Nixon step down in the face of Watergate. "Part Two: America, the Great (1976-1990) sees Jimmy Carter masterminding the Begin/Sadat peace agreements, terrorism first rearing its ugly head, Jim Jones leading a mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, and Reagan replacing Carter, launching star wars, and ushering in the Iran-Contra affair. As this episode closes, the Berlin Wall collapses. In "Part Three: The Global Revolution (1990-2000)" the Internet comes together, Clinton enters the White House, O.J. Simpson goes on trial, and Al-Qaida sets the stage for the most horrifying mass murder ever to hit American society. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide


We did all that…not perfectly, and we certainly aren’t perfect., but we learned and moved on and still are Strong and Proud and Free….as a matter of fact, the strongest, the proudest and the FREEIST!

Imagine that.

Remember that.

The best thing about being sick is I get to watch lots of movies.

Here is what I saw this past week

Fierce People: not a great movie, but I like the actors so the movie was good because of those: diane Lane, ???other names

Jane Austen Book CLub...great actors, movie was ok. Liked the theme. I love Jane Austen!

What Angels Dream: French, english subtitles: good..in a foreign film way.

Lady Catterly's Lover: newer French version. Much better than the American version. I thought it very good. One of my favorite classic pieces of literature.

Shattered: very good. Maria Bello is one of my favorites

December Boys: good but disappointing

also I read: alice sebold (Lovely bones and Lucky) The Almost Moon: started out shaky but like it very much by the end. I read her other two books too...she pulls her personal experiences in a way to create fictional stories very well...

reading now: Being Dead/novel/prize winner..forget the author...so far, good.

I finally discharged him.

A most difficult aspect of my job is taking care of oncology patients, especially those individuals who have many problems dealing with their disease, those that are worsening but are also stable. Insurance reimbursement does not occur for moral and emotional support or even for just blood pressure checks even if the patient has lost 40 lbs, is bald and weak and tired and dehydrated and looks just like a corpse sitting in an armchair. The problem arises after months of talking with someone and their significant others about something as intimate as their impending death and then saying..."see ya later, have a nice rest of your life, however short that may be"... in fact, "your not sick enough" has flowed from many very intelligent nurse's mouths. "Well I am sorry I can't be just a little bit sicker", is how I imagine the patient thinks. Everything worsens when you feel like your actually a friend or even part of the family and then you say goodbye. It's hard to say goodbye. As I hug them I pull my hands from theirs and try to run out the door. They want me to stay, they want to talk about how I've helped them, how much it means to them. Don't they know I'll cry over this for weeks to come. Can't they just let me go?????It's only easy when the person is all better and they are ready to do things, and thank you for your help and push you out the door so they can catch the next bus to the casino.

I hate being a nurse. Not really. But ...yes, I do.

In the middle of life, when we snuggle into routines, find happiness in our children's happiness, and finally feel free of certain struggles sometimes something disruptive happens. Brains freeze, lungs metastasize, skin grows the wrong way. Suddenly, work stops, kids halt, and pets linger at your feet with sad eyes. "I don't mind suffering a bit, I just want to know I'm getting better", is what they all say. They hang like fingernails scratching on a 60 story ledge on every inflection in their physicians tone, talk and recommendations. He said, "we'll see", but he was smiling and has a lot of hope! Goodie. I only hope your wishes come true.

Get me out of here. I can't take it! Oh...that's me talking, not the patient! How selfish can one nurse be? But I can't stress enough how I (we) go from one of these cases to the next, we internalize everyones anguish and it affects our lives and our families and our pleadings to God, Himself.

To say just put it aside as you leave the house is something I cannot do, to no one's surprise. I can't imagine many nurses who can and if they can, I wish they'd give a conference on it. Teach me!

Yet there are some things I am "immune to" and find that very odd, too. Yesterday, I saw a 27 year old black man who was injured from 8 gun shots. "This week's" gun shot victim (and remember I am only one nurse among 60+ more in the agency that also get at least one a month). He was concerned mostly about his pain and yes he is glad he isn't dead or paralyzed but his fiance with two children in tow was tending his wounds and colostomy as they were dressing for school and drinking their milk. The acceptance around this whole situation was absurd. Isn't anyone mad? Isn't anyone packing and moving to the North Pole to get away from this awlful place?

As I drive through the city and seethe at the piles of trash everywhere, as I walk to the stores or the park or just walk I watch people walk through trash and sometimes garbage. No one seems to notice or be bothered and I wonder how desensitized some of us have become, in fact, what is important enough to those robotic individuals that make their hair stand on end? Anything? Therefore, where would their motivation come from to do anything?

"I sit here every day", Tom says, "and wonder how long I am going to live. Is it 2 weeks, 2 months, 4 years or will I have a stroke this afternoon and be put to real rest? I wonder how any of us are supposed to eat a normal meal, read the paper and care about anything or help our daughter plan for her new family. I can't help wonder about what I am not going to see or be here to do. I sit and sit and try not to faint, seize or allow the room to spin. My days are all about minute to minute happenings. " 'How do you feel, Tom?' they all ask. I don't know what they mean. Now? A minute ago? Generally? So I just say, "fine or good or even some days great! but I don't mean it." Taking sips of water and Gatorade just to make my wife happy has become my daily goal.

It seems to me that the wrong people suffer. I can't seem to figure that all out.

I pile up all those frustrations about the sufferings, the waiting, the wondering and the way of the world today, and like trash that accumulates everywhere it seems as if ignoring it is the way to handle it, it seems as if sealing myself off and getting on to the next thing is the answer when feeling helpless. I think about getting a crew together and some big trash bags and starting to clean up the trash, maybe I'll inspire others to do the same thing. And then I wonder when I'll do this, how I'll find time? I find myself wishing for some scientist to cure cancer and end suffering and I want the city to clean up the streets. Then I realize I am not much different than the 27 year old black kid who was shot 8 times, or the hardworking married white guy who has no idea how bad he is going to feel or how much longer he'll be able to inhale and exhale. I realize we are all the same in some strange way. And we all are somewhat helpless. This realization is what makes things hard.

Making a difference is the only way to fight helplessness...maybe I need to find a way to motivate others to do the same.

I am off today. Always a respite. HA! I was sick a few days last week and the weekend..something that has been lingering and intruding the healthy cells of my body. My little guy is home sick, too. He has a fever. I am sick of lying down and taking it. I am ready to fight.

I am to get some Vitamin C...it's a start.

All we need is a start. Everyday, every minute can be a start of something good instead of an acceptance of something bad.

Find a cause and work at it. It makes you feel good. It just make a difference, a good difference.