Today I spoke with a friend whose husband learned on Monday that his cancer has metastasized.   He’s gone through 15 months of torture to combat the cancer. Despite that, it has spread and treatment has ended.  They have weeks, possibly months to do what calls them now.  Horrific as this is, and I can’t stop shaking, I think of how we all know in our hearts this is how we could live each moment, with this vital, living awareness of what is happening now, and now, and now.  

We spoke of how we motivate ourselves to rise each morning.  He has been driven by what he wants to do, and she has been more motivated or driven by a sense of duty, and now, there is freedom.  What calls them now?  He’s always wanted a Panama hat so he just bought one, and when they closed his safety deposit box, the money that would have been spent there paid for the hat.  Life is like that.  Even when it seems unbalanced, which this does, there is some sort of accounting beyond what we know or see.  

All of this circles me back to quotes I love.

Rainer Maria Rilke:

There is nothing so wise as a circle.

John Squadra:

When you love, you complete a circle.  When you die, the circle remains.

Ursula Le Guin:

Only in silence the word,

                       only in dark the light,

                           only in dying life.