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What If This Was To Be Your Last Holiday?

Read more articles on Let Me Share With You and Holidays.

December 12, 2006

About This Editor: Karen has enjoyed her many varied experiences in corporate business management, dance education, and preschool assistance. She hopes to write about these past lives-and more-from her home in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and 3 cats.

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As I unpacked bags today, I happened to look out of my window. My neighbor, on a stretcher, was being wheeled out of an ambulance and into the back door of her house. She’s been suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease and has been away since Mother’s Day. Coming back home to spend Christmas with her husband and three young children is probably the only thing she has wanted for some time.

The last thing I’d heard was that, in all likelihood, she would not make it through this year. I can not imagine facing my demise that way-knowing it’s inevitable is one thing; having everyone expect you to not last the year is altogether different.

These neighbors are merely acquaintances; they are actually in another plan but their yard abuts ours. As soon as we moved in, the children were quite mean to my daughter, so that put a halt to future socializing with them. The men, however, speak occasionally while doing yard work, and that is how we learned of the wife’s illness.

Lou Gehrig’s disease has to be one of the very worst conditions to acquire. It slowly destroys the ability to move not just major muscle groups, but bodily functions such as speaking. To be in a body that is, for all accounts, becoming gradually paralyzed, must be nothing short of hell on earth. When you consider the loss of ability to care for-or even talk to-three kids under 13, it’s mind-numbing.

I hurt deeply for her and for her entire family. What a bittersweet holiday this will be for them.

Realizing that so many people are going through something of this magnitude sure does put things into perspective, doesn’t it? Last night at this time I was sweating while working out to improve my muscle tone, while a few thousand feet away lays a woman who may not be able to open her mouth to eat, let alone lift her arm to get the food in. This morning I wrote an article here about the good luck some people seem to attract, and there’s a poor soul who wouldn’t mind even a little bad luck if it could mean she could once again hug her baby.

Oh, my, my, my…I imagine that any kind of disease where life slowly ebbs away from your body while your consciousness is aware of it is well beyond what we can comprehend. And any one of us could be in the same situation this time next year.

I don’t know what would be going through my mind if I knew this would be my last holiday in my home, with my loved ones, and I wasn’t even able to move. You could call it a tragedy, a horror…many, many things-but no words could ever suffice.

Let’s all wish folks in similar pain a joyful and special holiday, and if you believe in prayer, send an especially heartfelt one in their direction.