Live, Laugh, and Love

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Live, Laugh, and Love


                                  A Statement on Living Life and Loving Life


           In the years 1965 through 1968, there was a TV series called *Run for Your Life* starring Ben Gazarro.  This show is now available on DVD.  It is about a successful lawyer who is told by his doctor, in the first episode, that he is going to die in two years or so.  The rest of the series showcases his many adventures, as he travels all over the country and all over the world, meeting new people, and getting involved deeply in life.  He was running for his life.

          I'm living like that old show, *Run For Your Life*.   I'm doing things, a lot of things, I wasn't doing before, or as much before.  I'm running for my life, although not on Ben Gazarro's grand scale.  But I am having adventures, and I'm doing many bold things, and I do a lot of things for fun.

     I don't have anything like the excitement of the old show.  But I have my life.

     I go out and karaoke. I used to be a singer in a band group, and before that, I was in madrigals and choir. I can sing just about anything, from soft songs, like Frankie Avalon's "Venus" and Simon and Garfunkle's "Scarborough Fair"; to hard-hitting songs, like Led Zepplin's "Black Dog" and the Beatles's "Twist and Shout."

     I sing Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," the latter being a song not many can sing all the way through. I sing Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" and "Born to Be Wild"; and when I reach those life-loving lyrics, "I never want to die," I hammer them out with my whole heart, and I make the words soar.

     Despite having been a singer back in my far past, I never did karaoke before my diagnosis. But now I'm doing many things that I want to do, for fun.

     For years, I've wanted to go to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Somehow, I never did. Well, I went this year, for the first time. Setting my fears aside, I'm planning on going next year, too.

     Just because I come to this Internet doesn't mean I'm not living my life as fully as I possibly can in the so-called real world (this world is real, too). I just don't want most of my friends to know about my cancer, so while I am known to be a poet, in the physical world my poems are mostly different. Mainly on the Internet, mostly under this name, I place my poems about cancer and my feelings about my cancer and my mortality.

     The only thing that sometimes holds me back from singing, dancing, riding motor cycles, and doing death-defying deeds of derring-do, is my medical treatments, which sometimes swat me like a fly. And also, yes, sometimes I do succumb to depression, and sometimes I am disabled by anxiety attacks. But, much of the time, I feel good enough and well enough to do what I want to do. Then I do what I want to do.  And I'm having fun.

     I often go out to karaoke when all I feel like doing is sleeping. I recall one such occasion. My energy felt so low, so drained. But I got up on the stage and I performed--not just sang--"When the Music's Over" by The Doors.

     When I went back to my seat, several people high-fived me, and some came to my table to compliment my performance. One guy told me: "I feel like I just saw Jim Morrison live on stage." But what really got me was a comment made by a young woman: "You have so much energy, it's amazing."

     That got me because I knew the truth. I had such little energy I had to force myself with will power to go out that night. I went up on that stage feeling weak and tired. But then I plugged into something, and I drew energy from it. I plugged into my love of life. My desire to pack as much life as I can into the time I have left.

     That brings to mind a sentence in my poem "Song of Life."  I wrote: "I have little hope for a long tomorrow." A few peoplethought that meant I feel hopeless.  Yes, okay, that line is sad--but not hopeless; little hope is not the same as no hope.

     In addition to the conventional doctors I see--one of whom has already talked to me about planning for hospice "for when you need it"--I am seeing a holistic physician who is the only one who says I might be cured. I'm doing everything his program says. My oncologist doesn't have much faith in it, but concedes that it can't hurt, and just might do me some good.

     So I do hope, fervently hope, to be cured and to live a good long life. But I have to be honest with myself that the odds are not in my favor on that. One doctor, writing about me in a letter to my oncologist, said this: "He is unlikely to be cured of his cancer with any modality."

     No, doctors can't always say certainly, in a particular case. But around forty thousand people a year die from the kind and stage of cancer that has invaded my body. While not giving up hope that I will beat this cancer, it is better for me to recognize that beating it is a long shot. Just as it was for Farrah Faucett. Just as it was for Patrick Swayze.  Their fame and money could not save them from cancer.

     It is because I know that "I have little hope for a long tomorrow" that I am waking up at night to see the stars and moon, to appreciate and love their beauty and majesty. It is the reason why I'm joyfully singing and dancing and feeling my living body with all my moves. It is why I taste the air I breathe.

     I touch things, I feel things. Tables. Window glass. A fork in my hand at dinner: I make myself focus on how it feels in my hand. I draw deep breaths and I focus on smelling every fragrance and scent I find in the air. I'm living my life and loving my life.

     I cry sometimes.  Sometimes I get struck with sudden deep fear, with the impact of realizing that I really am trapped in the nightmare of incurable cancer.  I vent many of my fears and much of my grief into poetry.  But havng written such a poem, I set down my pen and get up and go live my life.  I live, laugh, and love, like there is only today--every day. Even on the days when I feel weak or ill; and even, to some extent, on the days when I am overwhelmed with fear, depression, or anxiety.

     As I put it in my poem "Song of Life":

               "Time is my life; time is what I have, for too long, too often missed.

                But now, I want to hold and feel and taste it all."

     I am not standardly religious; but I do see intelligence in the designs of life and living things. I also believe in the power of thought and prayer; and I know that there are many things outside the scope and ken of science--science, my first love, which I still so dearly love and respect.

     I hope that God hears me, and I pray for myself; and I also pray for many others. I just don't know what God is up to, to tell you the truth. But I hope he hears and will help.

     I love this world.  I'm not anxious to go to another world.  But I hope, then when I have to leave this world, God's grace will be great enough to forgive my little faith and my faults and flaws and sins, and that I will be granted life to live again, either in another world, or perhaps in a resurrection or otherwise a return to this world.  I hope. 

     But I'm living in this world now as if there is no tomorrow, because it is extremely likely that soon--much sooner than I would like--for me, there won't be.

     Bye now.


                              --Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
                             aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
                             Copyright © 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights Reserved
                                         

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blackfootlady commented on Live, Laugh, and Love

11-28-2010

I wanted to TY! Your Messages are strong.Live My Friend.For You are Love and Pls Keep Your Laughter,Thankyou for sharing this With Me...Love,Black

abuelita1 commented on Live, Laugh, and Love

11-28-2010

Remember these words I wrote to you in September 2009?? They still hold true..... PWC, I may never know who you are, but this one is for you! Special Angel A special angel came to me, A loving spirit, teaching, what I need to see. Sharing, caring, wisdom and love, Were the things I learned about, from my angel that came from above. Friends are angels without wings, They touch the heart and make it want to sing. Thank you, my angel friend for now I can see, How so very special life can be.LOVE YOU!! Super A

abuelita1 commented on Live, Laugh, and Love

11-28-2010

John 20:29 "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

abuelita1 commented on Live, Laugh, and Love

11-28-2010

Michael, I have been down much of your journey with you. I have told you all you need is the faith of a mustard seed. All you need is to put your life into Gods' hands. What do you have to lose? If you can put your faith in your holistic doctor, why not God?As you said yourself, "What do I have to lose?" The choice, Michael is up to you.

To have great poets there must be great audiences too.

Walt Whitman, American Poet (1819-1892)

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
OT
1
Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
Feeling the Wind 0
The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
Happy Birthday, Brian 0
The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
Brian's Special Smile 0
Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
Following My Friend 3
Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
2
Wonderful Connie 1
Someday-Dying 2
Between Yes and No 3
Love of Life 1
Zappa the Magnificent 1
In the Midst of Life 2
Only One Death 1
Real Illusion 1
The Unknown 1
My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
No More Me 2
Someone 2
Leaving Life 1
Precious Jade 2
Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
Seasonal Ring 1
Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
Snow Man for a Low Man 0
Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
New Year, No Love 2
Poetic Form 0
Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
About Me 1
Live, Laugh, and Love 4
Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
I and You: Unique and the Same 1
Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
Psyche 3
My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
Children of the Stars 2
Passing Life's Test 1
Why More Now? 1
Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
New Birthday 2
Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
Light for the Fight 2
All That I Have 3
Shine 2
As If the Last 2
Here Now 1
All in Time 2
The Exile 2
Incurable and Terminal 4
Tripping 2
One More Tomorrow 1
My Dash 4
One of Two Is Stronger 1
No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
Friendship and Life 1
Snow and Life 3
Live Spelled Backwards 1
Sarah Y 2
To Fly 2
My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
Once 3
The Haiku Form 2
Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
Light Locomotive 2
Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
High Coo 4
From Night to Night 3
Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
Fear and Courage 1
Death in Life 3
Unknown Final Fate 3
To Right a Poem 4
Crab-Like Concealed 4
Soon 2
All in the Mind 3
Ebony Shine 3
On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
Eqinox 4
Feeling My Heart 5
The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
Lovers 7
Art 5
Things to Do 4
Plane on Fire 3
Ameliorator 5
Thanksgiving 7
Worlds of Light 24
Failure's Fortress 13
Song of Life (Original Version) 13