Your Dying Spouse 441 - The Last Lesson {FMF}

Kind of doing bad, and having to recycle a comment I made on a recent Books and Such Literary Agency blog post, I Didn't Sign Up For This. I'm not sure how long I can even keep this up.

"I don’t know what I have to offer here, and am tempted not to try. But still, in what may only be a bow to ego, here goes.
* Yeah, I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up for an illness that would destroy everything I worked for, leaving me a bloody passenger in life, unable to give my wife more than prayers. I didn’t sign up for depending on the kindness of strangers to carry me back to the house when I pass out in the yard. I didn’t sign up for incontinence, or for nights of terror that seem to last forever but pass too quickly, bringing a dawn of exhaustion. I didn’t sign up for the blood or the bile or things far worse than these.
* But I’m here, and I have to believe that my faith in God means something, that when I say “I’m OK” that I am REALLY OK. I have to believe that if the only thing I have left to offer is love, that it’s a love worth giving, and receiving.
* So I will keep going, in faith and hope and love, for I have learned a thing. My dreams of success in writing and other things meant nothing; they are as dust on the winds of emotion. The only thing that ever mattered was saving lives, and love, and gentleness in the Scylla and Charybdis of madness and wrath. Love was the only thing I ever had in me that was worthwhile, through violent action and hugs and encouragement and, yes, through writing.
* So, yeah. I DID sign up for this. And I’d do it again, no hesitation. Here am I; send me."

I loved Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, but he got it wrong. Life isn't about fulfilling your dreams. It isn't about living well.

It's about loving with all your heart.

I want to go home, it hurts too much to go on; but there is love yet to give, and no room for surrender. (Surrender is the FMF prompt this week.)

I am trying to work through replies to your comments last week; my body is fighting me now. Please know that we treasure your comments, and read them all (or they are read to me).

For no reason that I can discern, the music this week is from Steve Winwood, with Valerie. Maybe it's just for fun, as some things should be. I hope you enjoy it!

If you're interested, you can find Andrew's books on Amazon.