Waiting For What?

By: Jamal Jivanjee

Imagine that you’ve been feeling a bit off for the past few months. So, you decide to make an appointment with the doctor just to cover your bases and make sure everything is kosher. One appointment turns into two, and then a referral. You answer all the questions and take the tests they order for you. A couple of weeks later, the phone rings: “You need to come in right away.”

As you sit down and face the physician who is sitting comfortably behind the desk, the words “I’m so sorry” and “…about six months” are all that echo in the chasm of your being.

“This has to be a mistake. I still have five years until I can retire. I’ve done my time. I’ve worked hard. We’ve been saving everything we can to be able to relax and travel to all the places we’ve always said we wanted to go. I just need ten more years at the least. Five to finish out my career, and the other five to enjoy the decades of hard work. I’ve been waiting for this season of life where I can finally live. What do you mean only six more months?”                         

By this point, you are probably realizing that you haven’t been present enough in life to be the parent or spouse that you truly desired to be. As a parent, you’ve been saving the creating of memories for the upcoming vacations. As a spouse, you figured you would have time in retirement, when you’d be able to be together without any distractions. That’s why you sacrificed so much of your life over the years. You just need a few more years to make it all worthwhile. If you would have known your life would be over in six months, you would never have agreed to postpone your life to the future. How can you get the years back?

See more in this weeks Boone County Journal