I have been thinking about time lately, specifically about how we spend it. The musing has been spurred by two very different letters from friends. One is dying of cancer; the other is somewhere in mid-life.
Larry is dealing with the relentless cancer with the grace and quiet courage that I have admired in him in other crises. His letter was an update on how he is faring and what he has been doing. Bev, a former colleague who has found ways of surviving in the changing landscape of journalism, wanted me to know about about a part-time, long distance teaching job in case I wanted to pursue it.
HOW WE ARE PASSING through this world is something that I suspect we all think about occasionally. We don’t ponder long, though, because we are overtaken by the demands of the “real” world. So, like Scarlett O’Hara, we’ll think about that tomorrow.
Way back in high school or college English, we were exposed to the idea of seizing the day—carpe diem—in Robert Herrick’s poem that began “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” and in Andrew Marvell’s line “Had we but world enough and time… .”
Those ideas were wasted on most of us. We did have world enough and time, and there would always be rosebuds to gather. Later, it was difficult to carpe the diem with a family to feed and a boss expecting us to show up for work.
SOMEWHERE ALONG the line, though, we run head-on into fact that while time may be infinite, our time is finite. A life-threatening illness—I’ve gone through several of those—or the death of someone close at too young an age—I’ve experienced that, too—forces us to examine how we are using the time we’re allotted, and we make promises to ourselves. Then the crisis passes, and most of us turn the autopilot back on until the next crisis, which, of course, could be the last one.
My friend Larry was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year ago and told he had perhaps two or three months to live. The doctors offered some options that might extend his life. There were things he didn’t want to leave for his wife to deal with, so he embarked on the rigorous round of radiation and chemo. The treatment had the desired results; in fact, the cancer was undetectable. He and his wife had a good summer at their cabin in the North Woods. He worked in his garden, a favored pastime, and fished with friends, another favorite.
CANCER DOESN’T GIVE up easily, though, and in the fall, it showed up in new places. The doctors held out no hope for a cure, but they had one more procedure that they thought could buy some quality time. His latest letter said that he is feeling well, and right about now he should be ice fishing. He hopes to make a trip south when the azaleas are in bloom. As for a trip to Mexico later in the spring, the doctors said don’t plan that yet. I am hoping that we can meet up in the next month or so.
In the end, I decided not to pursue the teaching job. It paid well enough, but the one thing the money it offered could not buy is time.
Bill Brown is a retired newspaper editor whose newspapers won a Pulitzer Prize, National Headliners Award, Edgar Willis Scripps Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment and Associated Press Managing Editors Public Service and Freedom of Information Awards. He is the author of “Yellow Cat, Hendry & Me: Dispatches From Life’s Front Lines. He can be reached at bill@williamblakebrown.com
