Candles

Today is a serious entry. Because, as much as I love to laugh, and as much as I enjoy my life and my chosen career, some things will always be more important.

For those who don't know, my aunt is dying of cancer. She was diagnosed a month and a half ago with a very rare and very aggressive form, called Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. We've been helping her fight it through radiation therapy, as well as supporting her in her desires to make the best of what she has left. She is a remarkable woman who has served others her whole life. She's even done her best to serve me, setting me up on dates and trying to introduce me to nice boys that she knew. Those dates went horribly and I've got them stored among my "best worst date" tales, but I always knew that she was just trying to help. It was never her fault that things didn't work out.

Anyway, our family has recently learned that the doctors are discontinuing radiation therapy on her now, because it isn't effective and would just cost the family more money than they've already spent. As my brave, patient, wonderful uncle put it, "at this time, it just becomes the worst waiting game in the world. Nothing to do but wait and see what happens next."

It was kind of a shock for me. I mean we've known -- our whole family has known -- basically from the beginning that we couldn't beat this cancer. But there was always that buffer of having "something" to do to try and delay the inevitable. Now that's gone.

She isn't gone yet, of course, and we're all hoping for as much time as possible. But it got me thinking about what things in this life are really important. As I watch my aunt go through this and see what she has chosen to do with the time that is left to her, I'm inspired and reminded of the things that should be -- and are -- most important to me. Instead of allowing the fear and calamity of her situation overwhelm her, she has reached out to everyone else. Every time I see her, she tells me how much she loves me, and reminds me that I'm wonderful. She reaches out of her own pain and sorrow and tries to comfort me. Because to her, family is the most important thing. She cares most about those who will be left behind. Her fears are for us, not for herself.

I'm not a morbid person, so I don't tend to dwell on death in all its gory detail, but I have given thought before to the kind of legacy I want to leave behind me when I do die. And I want it to be like hers.

I love all the things I talk about. I love editing. I love writing. But those things are just a means to the greater cause. Because more than anything else, I love people, and I want to make their lives better. When I edit, it's to help someone else achieve something. When I write, it's to share with others the things that make me happy in the hope that I can make them feel a little happier too.

I don't care if I become a famous author, or a respected editor. Writing the next Great American Novel doesn't mean all that much to me. But if I can reach out and touch someone else through what I do, if I can help someone else realize their dreams, that is what I will count as success.

My aunt has touched my life forever. The legacy of her life of service and love will live on in those she leaves behind. In her husband, in her six young children, in the nieces and nephews who have come to know her in a way we never could have before. She has touched us, and we carry the light we've gained from her to those whose lives we touch. Life isn't about money, recognition, or fame. It's about each person touching as many other people as we can and lifting them a little higher so that they can do the same. Like a candle that you use to light another candle, and another. The light spreads, and some of the candles go out, but there's always more that stay behind to share their light.