Life

[sevenofnine]

A guy I know used to work with.

A nice guy one of the nicest warmest friendliest guys you would ever want to meet. Religious but you wouldn’t know it, he never bragged about it or talked about it or thought he was better then anyone else because he had religion going for him. I only knew because he and I would pick up some overtime at work once in awhile and after a long day or a week of work and ot, I would want to stop in for a beer. He never came for a beer but I would give him a ride to church, that’s how I knew. He worked overtime for charity and to put his kids through university, me I discovered sp;s and loved it, but they cost money. To each his own I thought.

Any way one day he has a doctor’s appointment. Cancer. He became a shadow, wouldn’t talk any more his smile was gone but he still hung around and tried. Then he just faded away.

I saw him today. He couldn’t look me in the eye, he wasn’t even a shadow just a wif of air that passed by. I tried to say hello, but there was nothing there but fear and loneliness desperation.

I have no idea what life will bring me tomorrow but I hope and pray that whatever comes I have the courage to face it head on with a smile and embrace the ones I love and care about, and even the ones I don’t because for better or worse were all in this together.
And maybe hold up my middle finger to god or cancer or old age to my father for sure or that car bearing down on me.

Who said that
do not go quietly into the night?

But I hope I have some fight in me.
But mostly I hope I have compassion and strength to face my fellow human beings and what is to come.

 

[lenny]

[Maximus looks at images of his wife and son]
Juba: Can they hear you?
Maximus: Who?
Juba: Your family. In the afterlife.
Maximus: Oh yes.
Juba: What do you say to them?
Maximus: To my son - I tell him I will see him again soon. To keep his heels down while riding his horse. To my wife... that is not your business.


---------------------------



[to his dead friend]
Juba: I will see you again... but not yet... not yet...



--------------------------


Commodus: The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! But now, the people want to know how the story ends. Only a famous death will do. And what could be more glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great arena?
Maximus: You would fight me?
Commodus: Why not? Do you think I am afraid?
Maximus: I think you've been afraid all your life.


------------------

Maximus: Ancestors, I ask you for your guidance. Blessed mother, come to me with the Gods' desire for my future. Blessed father, watch over my wife and son with a ready sword. Whisper to them that I live only to hold them again, for all else is dust and air. Ancestors, I honor you and will try to live with the dignity that you have taught me.

----------------


[last lines]
Juba: And now we are Free. I will see you again... but not yet... Not yet!


--------------


[His only line]
Tigris: We who are about to die, salute you!

-----------


Juba: It's somewhere out there. My country. My home. My wife is preparing food. My daughters carry water from the river. Will I ever see them again? I think not.
Maximus: Do you believe you'll see them again when you die?
Juba: I think so. But then, I will die soon. They will not die for many years. I'll have to wait.
Maximus: But you would … wait?
Juba: Of course.
Maximus: You see, my wife and my son are already waiting for me.
Juba: You'll meet them again. But not yet. Not yet.
[They shake hands]
Maximus: Not yet. … Not yet.

 

[laurel love]

Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night.

Dylan Thomas.

 

[laurel love]

Some people help others, not because of a stringent upbringing, religious or otherwise, but, because they are born with this compulsion to serve and help; they are naturally good.

What happened to your co-worker is very typical and predictable because most humans are born with a 'taking' attitude, which, is really about finding ways to survive. Most humans will gladly push someone out of the way to take a bigger piece of the pie, even a friend or someone who was very good to them. It is sad.

Your co-worker will probably keep helping others; it is just her nature. This incident, however, will leave it's mark in some kind of post traumatic stress symptom. People can turn inward while they are healing. The healing can take a long time.

I almost cried when I read your post. Human cruelty is very dark. Really, there are not words to describe what it does.

I think the worse thing about facing a major life crisis is just how fast your true friends sort out from the acquaintances. One of our office staff was diagnosed with cancer about 6 months ago. She was a very generous, very happy person and had mentored many of the legal assistants and legal secretaries here. She comes to work every day, even days when she has an appointment with the oncologist at the cancer clinic for treatment.

She had been "deflated" for the last couple of months, I had thought it was because the treatment was wearing her down. That wasn't it. People that she had helped and mentored were trying to move her out. They were critical of her work, uncooperative when they could be and, finally, a group approached management and demanded that she be removed.

We had to bring in a human rights adjudicator. The final result is that she still works here - they do not.

The same thing had/is happening in her personal life. Many of the people around her had abandoned her.

I recognized your friend in what is/was happening to her. I think that when she comes out of this, she won't be the generous, happy person that she was.

 

[laurel love]

I am surprised by the "fear, loneliness and depression" of a man who put his earnest trust in his faith.

It is usually expected that regardless of our dedication to our faith we still fall to the usual assortment of disasters on the planet. The consolation is that faith makes the journey easier.

I have a friend who has been given 20 months or so to live and he is happy with what "God" has given him and is content to work hard until he can work no more. He is a busy guy and spends his time giving, and heading disaster relief efforts to war ravaged countries. He looks bright and energetic even though he is beginning to swell with the gradual shutting down of his kidneys.

I hope I have the strength to go out like that. I want the strength to rage at the dying light.

 

[AA_Train]

I feel sorry for that guy. Like others have said, a potentially terminal illness is tough to face. However, I believe that our society views death in the wrong way, by and large.

Death is a part of life, the last part. It all happens to us sooner or later. If your time is to come, enjoy what you can prior to expiration. Also, if you are ill, try anything and everything to get yourself better. Who knows, maybe there is an herb or a combination of medications and treatments that might cure or at the very least control your condition.

Whether you believe in reincarnation, heaven or believe we all just become worm food, you only get one shot at this life and I, for one, am not going to let anything take away from my enjoyment of it.

 

[laurel love]

I didn't articulate that very well. I have always envied people who have a strong faith and belong to a community of like minded people. I have little faith in anything except the knowledge that all things are illusions and subject to disappearing. It would seem to me that someone with faith would find it easier to transition and make peace than someone like me, whose vision of life after death is basically just being dead.

Yes, Al, but, even ones own family can be the ones who push aside and trample over. Some people are good at charging out, and, over anything in their way, and, some people are good at finding a safe place to hide.

I think the starkest picture of survival, outside of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, was what I saw in the nineties with some of the women I worked with in the agency. As they drifted deeper into addiction and they lost control of organizing their lives they began to pluck at anything and anyone to keep their heads above water.

Well, sevenofnine, I hope you can have the chance to catch up with him sometime. I bet he really liked being with you. Having a friend outside ones own clique can be a breath of fresh air. I sure hated when I was diagnosed with cancer how all my friends from Church had all these answers for me as to why it was happening. I wished they could just know that, as DonataLovesaLot stated, shit happens. There is no blame or shame.

I knew I had cancer before the doctor did, just gut feeling, I felt very, very sorry for him when he broke the news. He was almost in tears. I thought "how shitty to have to tell people such bad things eh?"

Well, it's gone and I am all better!

 

[laurel love]

The greatest burden I found, trying to recover, was the feeling of failure I had whenever people went out of their way to "pray over me" or give me nutritional advice. If I didn't show an improvement they seemed so disappointed. I hated disappointing them. I just wanted to be left alone.

 

[TheEmpress]

A guy I know used to work with.

A nice guy one of the nicest warmest friendliest guys you would ever want to meet. Religious but you wouldn’t know it, he never bragged about it or talked about it or thought he was better then anyone else because he had religion going for him. I only knew because he and I would pick up some overtime at work once in awhile and after a long day or a week of work and ot, I would want to stop in for a beer. He never came for a beer but I would give him a ride to church, that’s how I knew. He worked overtime for charity and to put his kids through university, me I discovered sp;s and loved it, but they cost money. To each his own I thought.

Any way one day he has a doctor’s appointment. Cancer. He became a shadow, wouldn’t talk any more his smile was gone but he still hung around and tried. Then he just faded away.

I saw him today. He couldn’t look me in the eye, he wasn’t even a shadow just a wif of air that passed by. I tried to say hello, but there was nothing there but fear and loneliness desperation.

I have no idea what life will bring me tomorrow but I hope and pray that whatever comes I have the courage to face it head on with a smile and embrace the ones I love and care about, and even the ones I don’t because for better or worse were all in this together.
And maybe hold up my middle finger to god or cancer or old age to my father for sure or that car bearing down on me.

Who said that
do not go quietly into the night?

But I hope I have some fight in me.
But mostly I hope I have compassion and strength to face my fellow human beings and what is to come.

That was something to digest, wow. We put on faces to keep others away, when it is us who have reached a point we can't take any more "help". I hope you get to sit and have a coffee with him sometime and catch up, being spoken to like a normal person and not a leper can do wonders for the soul. Come in and go out of this life the same way, with a BANG! And a whole lot of huppla This can be so hard when living in pain, I try to remember there is always some one else out there worse off, and with a better mind set.

 

[Dark_Knight]

1101(2)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas