Why Fight It? I'll Be Free When I'm Outa' Here and R.I.P.

I don’t often read obituaries, but occasionally I’ll scan them in the newspaper – you know, to make sure I’m not there. I always feel good when the people who died are older than myself too. That gives me hope that I might be around a few more years. I don’t like seeing that someone younger than myself has died, even if it was just an accident.

Something that bothers me about obituaries though are the ones that say someone died after a “hard-fought battle” - usually with cancer. Which means the person LOST. I don’t know about you, but I hate losing.

I can’t help wondering why we need to say something like that anyway. Isn’t it just possible the hard-fought battle wore the person out so that he or she died sooner than he or she should have? And as far as I can tell, you never really win against cancer anyway. It might go away for a while, but it always seems to come back. I’ve known so many people who thought they had cancer licked because they’d been “clean” for several years, only to succumb to the disease eventually

I like to think I will die with peace and dignity. I think of times I have fought a hard battle and the anger and frustration of that battle have left me totally strung out. A hard-fought battle with Kathleen surely leaves me strung out. And as surely as I think I have “won” our battle, I learn from her angry silence and her reluctance to kiss and make up later, that I really have lost. The cost of winning a battle with my wife is that the victory can kill a little part of our relationship that even Jesus can’t resurrect. Battling with your spouse is not like sports. Winning is NOT everything.

Road rage is another example of fighting a battle that can kill you in the end. We’ve all read accounts of that in the newspaper or heard it on TV.

Sam and I wonder though, what is the definition of “hard fought?” Does that mean you pay gazillions of dollars to take every new expensive experimental drug to avoid dying? Does it mean you fly to Mexico or India or some other foreign country in hopes that a treatment banned in the United States will cure you? Does hard fought mean you spend so much time under the influence of drugs or flitting around to other countries that you don’t give yourself time to straighten out your affairs, spend quality time with family and friends and die bitter at God in the end because you didn’t win the hard fought battle?

I would take some drugs if I needed to (mostly for pain I think) and undergo some treatment, but I would rather spend what time I had left visiting with friends and family, laughing about all the good times we had and goofy things we did. Besides, if I’m truly a believer and I’m convinced that the beyond is even better than here, why would I fight so hard not to pack up my old kit bag and go? There’s a great son – “No more crying there (here), we are going to meet the King.” I’ll no longer be lamenting broken relationships on earth, injuries or sickness that debilitate me. I’ll no longer have to pay bills or do any of dozens of other unpleasant things. I’ll be free! Why would I want to fight a long hard battle against being free?