Left Wondering

In the fall of 2013, we had local author, Deana Driver come to our school and give a presentation to our students.  She talked about her journey to becoming an author and how important it is to both read and write.  She spoke about a few of the books she wrote and/or published, and 4 of the works peaked my interest.  I just finished "Never Leave Your Wingman" by Deana, and I became not only very interested in the people she was writing about, but very attached also, as though I had made 2 new friends.

The story is about a couple, and the wife's battle with cancer.  The story talks about how they met, how they worked through Dionne's first cancer, only to be faced with another, then another, and yes, then another set of cancers. 

This is the story of a thriving survivor, (and her wingman/husband) who will stop at absolutely nothing to keep cancer from taking her life.  To make a long story short, and to answer the riddle of my title for this post, the ending leaves us with Dionne in stable condition, her cancer not gone, just stopped in it's tracks. 

I find myself wanting to call Dionne, or at least someone that knows her well enough to answer, "How are you now?",  "What has happened since the book was published?".  The fact is, I'm not privy to that information, and nor should I be.  Whether Dionne dies from her cancer or not, the fact remains, cancer never took her life.  That is, it couldn't take the living out of her life.  When she was well, she lived well.  When she was sick, she dealt with it in the most positive way possible. 

I know a lot of people who do not have a clue how to live like this, myself included, even with relatively simple lives.  All thoughts of cancer aside, we dwell.  We dwell on everything.  If today is not as good as yesterday was, we dwell on that.  If yesterday was a bad day, we will dwell on that.  If we plan on having a good or bad day ahead, we can't shut up about it.  How do we live for right now?  There have been many books published on this subject, and 'living in the now' supposedly paves the way to inner peace. 

How we get there is an individual thing.  Some of us will be gifted a sudden epiphany, others will drift in out of this desired state of mind.  Some of us will just slowly improve, gradually living more and more in the moment.  Through reading this book, and 'knowing' Dionne, I have moved a little bit closer to that goal of living life to it's fullest and appreciating what I have now.  And that is what I am thanking this book for.  Thank-you to Dionne and her husband, Graham for sharing their story, and thank-you to Deana Driver for all the hard work in putting it together.