Skip to main content

Alice

Every three months The Rabbit has her iron and celiac levels checked. As an 8-year-old, she has pretty choice words to say about being stuck with a needle quarterly. As her mother, I don't love it either. But in the medical building, before we round into her doctor's offices, we pass the children's outpatient cancer wing. I actually try not to look in and rush The Rabbit past too. Yet last Tuesday, at one of her check-ins, I paused long enough to look through the glass window to see a young boy, a YOUNG boy, with IV bags attached to his arm, and his father, tired but smiling, snuggling next to him.

I thought of this as I read today about a young 15-year-old British girl with terminal cancer named Alice, and her bucket list of what she wishes she could do if she had more time. To swim with sharks. To stay in a caravan. To have a purple iPad. To have a back massage. To have her hair done...."...if they can do anything with it," she wrote.

It made me think of being 15. And then I thought about The Rabbit turning 15.

Alice isn't asking for money. But she is asking readers to think about time. Her time. Our time. Take a little of it and head over to her blog today.

Comments

Kate B. said…
Oh Lauren, I read Alice's blog and it is so sad but so heartwarmingly positive too.

Please take a look. It puts all the cr*p we worry about on a daily basis into perspective.
Elaina M. said…
Thank you for reminding me that life is terminal for each of us, mostly on the longer end. The young who face death have a courage and perspective that is unique. In accepting death, it is the simple things done for the heart and body that seem to matter the most. Alice teaches us not to take time and living for granted, not for even a second.

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

A thought

Perhaps sometimes a gift can be delivered in the guise of a tragedy. It's just a matter of perception, after all. I suspect that the talent lies in looking beyond the surface to what lies beneath and beyond. And, of course, being able to make sense of it all and going on to apply that knowledge to building a productive way forward. Here's hoping.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...