Time (by Elisabet)

Time (by Elisabet) I am beginning to think that living until the age of 40 and above is a miracle. Life-threatening diseases, natural disasters, road accidents, mountain accidents... take along with them so many young lives! A meteorologist, good person, good colleague, good professional, who had been working at the Catalan TV channel, TV3, for 16 years passed away at the beginning of July at the age of 40 due to a mountain accident, overnight. It was not an especially difficult hike, but a series of misfortunes wanted him to end his days on his beloved mountains. I didn't know him personally, but we were used to his presence in our homes, through the TV, while having lunch or dinner. He was someone so familiar, so enthusiastic, who would come often to update us about the weather; big issue, the ever-changing weather, in an area where we enjoy (and suffer!) the four seasons. Some days before this took place I had read the article on this blog dated June 22, 2012, where that nice comparison was made between mountain hikes and radiotherapy. My mind went immediately to it. While things like this happen we continue living. Cancer is a very strange illness; except for the most unfortunate cases in which the diagnosis takes place too late and the end comes too soon, it is an illness that gives us something we always longed for, or used to complain we never had enough, or we usually ran out of: time. Even with metastases we have learnt the hard way that there's still time ahead of us and we treasure it more than ever. We feel we are “buying time”, indeed. Cancer has given me a different perception of time, a way to discern what's really important from what's not. There's been a change in priorities and I stopped doing long-term planning. Now I do short-term and mid-term planning (short-term meaning tomorrow; mid-term meaning next week, next month). Not that I don't think about next year and the following years; I do it with hope, but not with the urgency to plan on anything. Cancer has taught me to slow down and at the same time to stop postponing things I had been wanting to do. They may be simple things such as watching that film, or reading that book, or bigger things provided my present situation allows me to do them. The meteorologist couldn't “buy” any extra time. Of course he was spared from the physical and psychological burden that an illness like cancer implies, but while he's already gone we are still here to share our thoughts and experiences, our stories, our side effects... here to enjoy life, to experience happiness in different ways that can be unexpectedly highly rewarding... here to fight, here to keep holding on to life like climbers holding on to the rocky mountain walls.