Really Living

None of us ever knows how long we are going to live. That is probably a good thing, in general, although there are some disadvantages.

I still don’t know when my time will be up, but since I have been diagnosed with cancer, and am having to deal with treatments on an ongoing basis, my mortality has become something I think about a lot more.

That might sound negative, but it isn’t. I know that my time may be limited, so I want to make the most of it. Any day that I feel well enough, I go out and do something fun. I am doing those things that I always wanted to try, but put off because I didn’t have the time, or because other people would think they were silly, or for one of a dozen reasons. (The latest one is an archery lesson). And you know what? Most of my friends don’t think it is silly after all. The most common response I get is “Go for it!”.

We only have one life (as far as I know), and when it comes to an end I don’t think any of us will be thinking about how many hours we worked or how clean we kept our house. We will remember time   we spent with family and friends, and things that made us laugh and enjoy ourselves.

I may get lucky and live to be an old lady, but I don’t think I will ever regret the things I am doing now, and I plan to keep having fun whenever I have the free time.

Cancer

I have hated cancer for many years. It has taken the lives of people that I loved, and caused pain and suffering for many others. It is one of those nasty facts of life that springs up suddenly and damages or destroys lives, with little we can do. It inspires a feeling of helplessness, as well as anger.

Something I had not realized until very recently, though, was that I believed – on a subconscious level – that cancer was something that happened to other people. People close to me, maybe, but not to me.

Therefore, when I went to get my first colonoscopy a couple of months ago, I wasn’t truly concerned, even though I was younger than usual because we have a family history of colon cancer. I was, in fact, planning to send an “all clear” message to two of my cousins – who are about my age and up for the same thing – that evening. It didn’t turn out that way.

I was told that I had a tumour in my colon, which soon proved to be malignant. I have now been through major surgery, and am about to start six months of chemotherapy. 

Going through all I have been through in the past couple of months – tests, surgery, hospitalization and generally feeling awful – has helped bring home the reality that I really do have cancer, and that it can happen to me. But even after all this, I sometimes struggle with accepting it.

Why should you care? Because if someone who already knows they have cancer has a hard time believing it, then I can only guess that many people have the same “it can’t happen to me” feeling that I did. Fortunately, I got tested anyway. My brother doesn’t want to. Neither do many other people. Do it anyway. It CAN happen to you, and a test might save your life.

The government, Indians and Canadian racism

There is a lot of anger in Canada right now, much of it divided along racial lines. A good deal of the blame for this rests on government policy that is outdated and blatantly racist.

Several years ago my mother told me a story that I have never forgotten. She had gone into the local convenience store, to pick up some bread or milk. In the store were two little girls, about seven or eight years old and obviously best friends. They were giggling together and counting their coins, trying to decide what to buy. Eventually they each picked up the same chocolate bar, and went to the cashier.

The first little girl put her candy on the counter. The cashier put in the cost, and the tax, and told her the price. She paid him. The second girl placed her chocolate bar on the counter, and was charged only the cost, without tax. The first child noticed this, and said “Hey, how come I had to pay more than she did?” The cashier answered “Because she’s Indian”.

This didn’t satisfy the girl, who turned to her best friend for an answer: “How come I have to pay more than you do?” Her friend shrugged, and said “Because I’m Indian”.

And that is where the anger, and the division into “us” and “them” begins. One side is bitter because they pay taxes and do not get the “perks” of the other. The other side is angry because they don’t have enough of what they need.

Another story, this one from a news outlet. They were telling, very sympathetically, the plight of an Indian man who had not had working plumbing for 20 years. He was still waiting for the government to fix it. At no point did he appear to consider hiring a plumber to pay for having it fixed himself, nor did the story mention this as an option.

I know that treaties were signed between the English and the Indians hundreds of years ago. I don’t really care. Times change for everyone. This is Canada, and all of us, no matter what race, should have the same rights and the same responsibilities. We should all pay taxes. There should be no special funds available to “Aboriginals” only.

I am not asking for, nor do I wish, cultural assimilation. Canada has always succeeded as a mixing bowl of many cultures. I am speaking strictly of equal treatment under the law for all races.