jumpstarting a life with a little spark to the head

Orginally written on Sunday.

Our family is headed back to Nashville after a day spent in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s around Sevierville now; we’re on the Dolly Parton Parkway. There are a variety of stores that we pass by. We see a gravestone-marker store. As our car drove past this shop, Mother says, “Oh, we need to go reserve one.”

It’s been almost three years since she was first diagnosed with cancer.

I knew it was somewhat of a joke from her, but the fact is that I’m sure she does think about something like this given that she’s been told of her chances of survival. This type of joke is why also I can’t escape the topic of death. I sometimes get annoyed by that type of humor. “Why not two?” I thought to myself. I’m the one that could decide any day to die instead of having to find out that I’m dying around a certain time. I’m not sure she understood that the thought of death affects me just as much as it might affect her, albeit in a much different way.

But anyway, that comment from her, and many others, just makes me sad. It means she can’t escape the thoughts of death, either. After the surgery, chemo and the news that the cancer, at least for now, is gone, what’s left perhaps is that uncertainty. And facing that feeling daily cannot be an easy task.

Some profound thoughts while on the Dolly Parton Parkway…