From Patti
I have always wondered what it would be like to have someone tell me that I have only one week...one month...one year... to live. I try to live my life now as much as possible in a good way. I enjoy the few things I have and don't cling to those things if material. Living to me means seeing the beauty in everything no matter what one faces during that time of being...seeing things whenever possible and as much as possible...doing the things I have always dreamed and not saying "one day". I understand now that "one day" may never come for whatever reason, which is why that "one day' is always tomorrow for me....but only because the days are too short to do everything today.
This morning Erik and I were greeted with glum news from his brother Torrey who was taken to the hospital this weekend for a stroke. During his stay there, the doctors did some exploring and discovered that his cancer has resumed and spread to his liver. Torrey was told that this time it is incurable. He seems to be taking it well and has decided to spend everyday doing things he likes doing with the people he loves. He told us not to worry about him while we were hiking, but how can we not. We're hiking for this very reason.
We also learned today that one of the trail angels for the PCT has passed from cancer. He has left his wonderful wife behind to finish the job of angeling. She is in her 70's and she rides a motorbike up dirt roads to bring us water where we would otherwise be carrying several liters of it for about 50 miles. Now she is doing it alone.
The angels, for those of you that don't already know, help the hikers every year in one way or another. They take us into their homes, close by the trail, feed us, let us use their showers, internet, phones...some leave water on the trail for us in places we would otherwise have to carry gallons for 30-50 miles in the heat of summer...some offer rides to town or just suprise us at trail heads with hamburgers, beer and other consumptions totally unimaginable for one who is hiking long distances in the middle of nowhere. Angels on the trail are amazing...
Cancer sucks...it's not fair and it's not predjudice. My hope is that while we are on this hike, a cure is found so that everyone living with cancer now and in the future can forever live without it.
I have always wondered what it would be like to have someone tell me that I have only one week...one month...one year... to live. I try to live my life now as much as possible in a good way. I enjoy the few things I have and don't cling to those things if material. Living to me means seeing the beauty in everything no matter what one faces during that time of being...seeing things whenever possible and as much as possible...doing the things I have always dreamed and not saying "one day". I understand now that "one day" may never come for whatever reason, which is why that "one day' is always tomorrow for me....but only because the days are too short to do everything today.
This morning Erik and I were greeted with glum news from his brother Torrey who was taken to the hospital this weekend for a stroke. During his stay there, the doctors did some exploring and discovered that his cancer has resumed and spread to his liver. Torrey was told that this time it is incurable. He seems to be taking it well and has decided to spend everyday doing things he likes doing with the people he loves. He told us not to worry about him while we were hiking, but how can we not. We're hiking for this very reason.
We also learned today that one of the trail angels for the PCT has passed from cancer. He has left his wonderful wife behind to finish the job of angeling. She is in her 70's and she rides a motorbike up dirt roads to bring us water where we would otherwise be carrying several liters of it for about 50 miles. Now she is doing it alone.
The angels, for those of you that don't already know, help the hikers every year in one way or another. They take us into their homes, close by the trail, feed us, let us use their showers, internet, phones...some leave water on the trail for us in places we would otherwise have to carry gallons for 30-50 miles in the heat of summer...some offer rides to town or just suprise us at trail heads with hamburgers, beer and other consumptions totally unimaginable for one who is hiking long distances in the middle of nowhere. Angels on the trail are amazing...
Cancer sucks...it's not fair and it's not predjudice. My hope is that while we are on this hike, a cure is found so that everyone living with cancer now and in the future can forever live without it.
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