Et tu, Brute?

Time…let’s talk about time for a bit. It only took two entries in my blog before a dear friend pointed out the difficulty in counting time. I said that January 2010 began a new decade and she wisely pointed out that the new decade officially begins in 2011. I can follow the mathematical proof that gets that conclusion but am really challenged by the idea that the ‘80’s began in 1981.

That’s only one of the whack things about time. Another utterly WHACK thing about time is the whole ‘spring forward/fall back’ thing. Even if you do understand why we do that, I don’t want you to explain it to me. All I know about it is that it’s a hassle. Case in point: some of the clocks in my house adjust for DST automatically, but others do not; I got a new alarm clock this summer; in order to be on time to work this past Sunday morning, I reset the timer on my coffee maker, and my new alarm clock.; when said alarm clock went off at the appointed hour, my husband checked his atomic, read absolutely accurate, clock and informed me that mine was off by an hour…yep, that’s right, I managed to lose not one, but two hours of sleep last Saturday. Well, I clearly do not qualify as a genius.

It’s the Ides of March…today. We count days the same way the Romans did, or at least similarly enough that many an adult can recall that this is the date, or at least reputed to be the date, of the famous attack at the forum that resulted in the death of Julius Caesar. Pretty amazing if you think about it.

Most kids I know spend months planning for their birthdays, but somewhere along the way those bouncing kids, who were once debating between Strawberry Shortcake or Barbie for party theme, become adults who, as often as not, sigh and say, “Yep, I’m another year older. Where did the time go?” When I was a teenager stressed out about grades and whether or not the boy I had a crush on would EVER notice that I existed, I used to say, “Stop the world. I want to get off.” I don’t know where else I thought I might go, but even then, I could tell that the passing of time was a significant contributing factor to my tension.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that time is the most valuable commodity there is. I mean, over my lifetime, I’ve discovered through a variety of circumstances that there’s always an option to obtain more money, another job, and, for that matter, new friends, after all, most of us meet new people every week. All of which really works the point back around to time…again.
Then last weekend, before my time change trauma, I got an e-mail message from a dear friend. We only get to talk about once a year, but she’s the kind of friend that would do anything for me, and she has sacrificed much on more than one occasion for my benefit. When we do make our annual phone call, we talk as if we’ve been seeing each other every day like we used to before our lives moved us to homes that are thousands of miles apart. We share the kind of friendship that will only exist with a handful of people in my lifetime. She included a link saying her family had ‘big stuff’ going on and asked for my prayers. Naturally, considering the source, I read on, clicked the link, signed in to read the information she was sharing and found myself weeping in shock to find that her sweet husband has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

WOW! Ummm…yeah…well, talk about ‘whack.’ That sort of news will prompt a major change of perspective. My reaction surprised me…but I seriously could not stop the tears. Thinking of the potential changes her family faced and trying to imagine a world without this man, who is truly kind, with a most delightful sense of humor and making such a positive contribution to his community and family just made me incredibly sad. So I did what every self respecting participant in popular culture does these days; I posted a status update to my facebook profile. Within minutes, literally, several other kind friends had contacted me offering kind words and prayers for this family facing cancer. It was incredibly humbling. The technology that makes instantaneous communication available is mind boggling…well to me anyway. My many tech savvy friends can actually explain how it works, but this week, I’m just grateful it does.

The next day, I managed to call my friend and listened to her explain all about what their path, thus far, has been like and that the outlook at this point is good with a surgery on the horizon. Of course, only TIME (there it is again, that word) will tell for sure how this journey will unfold for them…well, for all of us who are going along with them because we love them. But that’s prompted me to ponder the value of time further and look toward determining whether I’m truly making the best use of the time I have. Because one thing that occurred to me this week, after receiving this news, is that similar news may be coming to my house someday. That might sound selfish, but I don’t mean it that way at all. I mean that it’s taken knowing my friend is facing a potentially life threatening illness to examine my priorities. Since this is March 15th, I naturally went to Shakespeare for some inspiration and found this spoken by Caesar himself in act II of the play nearly universally studied by high school students.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,The valiant never taste of death but once."

Knowing my friends as I do, I can safely say that cowardice is NOT an attribute either one of them will struggle to overcome as they journey through cancer treatment. Already, they demonstrate valor in their approach. Our bodies will wear out so that we must all die once; I resolve to be valiant in every moment of every single day so that I won’t have to experience the pain of partial death that can result from selling out to cowardly choices. I’m going to ask for patience from you on this; if we are talking and I say something that comes across as a bit too direct, please understand. It might be the best I can do in that moment and I’m learning that ‘that moment’ might be the last one we get to share especially if we have to keep changing the clocks.