I'd choose to live

Blaine is our resident history buff.  He has loved learning about historical facts for as long as I can remember. A lot of history can be fairly violent in my opinion, however, it is not unusual for Blaine to read a book on Viking torture devices before going to bed. He is now reading the Hunger Game series for the third time (I read them first before I agreed to let him read them). Yes, they are violent, but they have opened the way for discussions of what living in a totalitarian government system would be like, leading us to conversations of what life may be like in places like North Korea. Later I’m sure it will lead to conversations about human rights.

When Blaine was four years old, my aunt gave him a dream catcher to hang in his room. It’s been hanging on his mirror for six years now. Coincidence or not, he hasn’t had a nightmare that he can remember since.  Maybe that’s why he can read such disturbing books before bed. On the other hand, Aislin would be traumatized by reading about a dog being temporarily separated from its family and would insist on sleeping in my bed all night. She will have to be 18 before she can read the Hunger Games, if ever!

The other day, out of the blue, Blaine asked an interesting question.

 

Blaine: “Mom, if you knew, before birth that you would die a horrible death, would you still choose to be born?”

Me: “Wow, I have no idea. What would you choose?”

Blaine: “I’d choose to be born anyway, even if I died a horrendous death.”

Me: “Well, that’s a pretty optimistic view point from a pessimist!”

Blaine: “Yeah, I know.”

I don’t know why he thought of that question, but I thought his answer was interesting. He’d choose to live anyway. 

Sometimes I think about friends and people that have been in my life that died before their time. For one year I worked and a speech and language pathologist on a preschool assessment team. For one year we had lunch together nearly every day. We talked about our families; we laughed together and shared the stress of being a working mother with children and a life outside of work. At the end of that school year she was in a fatal car wreck. She and her youngest son died in that wreck, while her husband and oldest son lived. There is not a day that I don’t think of her. If I’d known I’d only have one year to get to know her and enjoy her presence, I’d choose to spend that time with her, all over again. None of us know how long we have, but we can chose how we focus our energy on the time that we do have.

Hearing Blaine say he’d chose to live anyway makes me so proud. It comforts me on the days that I still want to scream, shout or sit down and cry. It wills me to keep going. I pray he will keep this veiwpoint in the years ahead. It scares me when I hear other parents talk about diabetes-burnout, but for now, all we can do is choose to climb the mountain and live each day.