15 October 2011

paddle mission

I've been a little down. Mostly because I was thinking about how Halloween is in a week-ish and we still haven't really thought about it. I guess it's just that all those fun kid things have been replaced, sort of, with school and college applications. I love holidays, and I think holidays are about family, and I just wish that I was a kid again for that reason. Playing outside in the leaves, all that fun stuff.
Sometimes I feel uninspired when I'm sad. But suddenly, as if a spark of inspiration came and flew into my ear, I became inspired. I found out about this woman who is 45 years old and she is a standup paddler (they're those things that are like smaller surfboards that you stand on and paddle). She has 3 kids, she's a single mom, and she's going to go on a 1-month standup paddling journey along the Ganges River in India. She's going to paddle for about 4 hours per day, hopefully covering 25 miles per day, until she's finished the whole river.
But that's not the most amazing part of her story.
She also has cervical cancer, and she only has about 6 months left to live. At the most.
Imagine if you knew you only had a few months left to live. What would you do to make them the best moments ever?
It's horrible to think that way, but that's how you get the best out of it. And instead of moping around at home, she is getting up and doing something amazingly active, spiritual, and unconventional. She's doing something no one has done before, and she's going to make it her last best memory.
I wish no one ever had cancer. I wish cancer didn't exist. And I wish there was a way to eradicate it. Right now tons of experts in the field of oncology are working on it, and I hope someday they can get rid of it for good. But for now, it's something that too many people have to deal with.
And this woman is making her last months the most memorable.
Some people can handle emotional stress, and some people can't. But I guess you can't tell how you handle it until it happens to you.

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