As Calmly as Possible

You know, I really like the act of blogging. It's cathartic, you get to report on the happenings of your life and thoughts in your head, and everyone wins at the end of the day. Lately though  I feel as though I've been stuck in a muddy pit with no motivation to climb the slippery walls towards freedom. Just as I feel as though I've gotten back onto the horse of life, I feel the wind knocked out of me with the news of some new terrible trial in my life.

And in that I feel terribly selfish, because really, it's not as though it's all happening to me. I'm quite a bystander. My grandmother is a tremendous woman. She has accomplished a great deal in her lifetime and is and should be revered by many. She is the most talented, compassionate, dedicated, and willful woman I know. To hear that she has this stage 4 pancreatic cancer seems completely out of sync with my entire perception of her. It's not fair that she should have to suffer through this, it's not fair that she's lived a healthy and well maintained life only to be knocked down with such a disease. In all of my not fairs, she is taking this is such stride, that she puts my pettiness to shame. This woman is the cornerstone of my family will be our strength to the bitter end, and beyond. I hope to be half the woman she is.

"I was already beginning to realize that the only way to conduct oneself in a situation where bombs rained down and bullets whizzed past, was to accept the dangers and all the consequences as calmly as possible. Fretting and sweating about it all was not going to help."
— Roald Dahl (Going Solo)