Tim McGraw came out with that song the first time I fought cancer, Live Like You Were Dying. I remember it so well, because I was almost 41 and we were waiting for test results. We both cried every time we heard that song. I got the results the day after my 41st birthday. I survived that round, with a stage IV diagnosis being lowered to stage III.
Now, at almost 49, I've been battling stage IV cancer for about 21 months. I'm going to finally start living like I were dying. My doctor flat out told me there is NO cure for stage IV breast cancer. It's a case of going in and out of remission. I was in remission for 8 months of the middle part of this fight. Currently, the cancer is active. So I can say I know what it feels like to feel like you were dying. It's just a matter of time.
So, looking deep inside of me, what's the thing I would most want to do? I don't sky dive. I see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, just like I see no reason to go down in a perfectly good boat (submarine). So that's out. I can barely do my housework, or sit at the computer for long periods of time, so I guess riding a bull for 2.7 seconds is out, too. I live too far from my dad to go fishing with him, even though he's 80. I do call my mom often just to catch up, even if it's only been a few days.
What I want most in the world, is for my children to grow up in the America I knew as a kid. That America is slowly fading away, and I feel there's not much I can do to stop it.
I remember a simpler time. Perhaps it was because I was a kid and a bit naive. I remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school, and ending it with "Amen." Now God isn't allowed in school and the minority of the atheists rule over this Christian Nation. I remember learning the Pledge on Romper Room, as I ate lunch with the kids on the show who were eating their lunch. They made them stop eating lunch on camera "because there were too many children in this country who didn't get lunch." Really? With all the government programs we have for Welfare and food stamps? Where do the parents spend the money if not on food? I remember being taught by my parents that a job worth doing was a job worth doing well. Where is today's work ethic? A government worth scamming is a government worth scamming well? If your unemployment runs out, don't try harder to get a job, or lower your standards so you can get SOME kind of job. Just claim mental distress and get SSI. You never get something for nothing. All the other people who work are paying for your SSI. What happens when the whole country, or a majority of it, is out of work? You think the Democrats won't cut welfare if it means they lose some of their money?
I spent 4 years serving my country in the Navy, back during the cold war. I had quit college to join. I had been an art major, emphasis on commercial art, with a minor in journalism. I carried 17-19 hour semesters. I think 15 is considered a full load. I applied for a scholarship because government aid was for people who made less than my parents. Of course, they didn't make enough to send me to college, but they made too much for me to get a grant. I wanted (like every kid) to go to a college that wasn't in my home town. My home town had a fully accredited university, but I wanted out. I didn't get out. I went for a year and a half at the local university and lived at home. I worked as a temp at Proctor and Gamble hand packing cases while I waited for my enlistment time, because J.C. Penny's found out I was on delayed entry and fired me. My job in the Navy was as an Ocean Systems Technician, Analyst. No civilian equivalent. Not too many submarines come up the Mississippi River.
When I got out, I got a job through Man Power doing a chemical inventory at the Proctor and Gamble plant. It was a temporary job and I'm sure I got it because I was ex-Navy. I had been the safety officer for my department. Of course, that meant I conducted fire drills and sabotage alert drills, but it was experience. They knew I would be thorough. I was just making a bit of extra money before I got married, but I had a job. Later, I would become a 911 dispatcher to bring in extra money.
I don't know where America went, or the America I knew. It's been a creeping death, a slouching towards Gomorrah. I was busy raising a family and not paying attention, as I guess most of America was doing. The enemy snuck in, nose into the tent, and is destroying us from inside. I can no longer stand by and watch it happen.
I don't really know what I can do that's more than I'm doing. I canceled my Face Book page for a while, but friends back home convinced me to start it back up. It bothers me a bit that when I logged back in, everything was still there from 3 years ago when I started. It should have been wiped out and I should have had to start over. It just proves that information is there forever. So, I'll use that to my advantage. I'll tell stories, I'll shine the light on things I know to be wrong. I'll post on Face Book all the stories I can to try and convince my liberal friends and family that this is the wrong path. We are headed to destruction and most are too ideological to even see it. Let me tell you, being ex-military, you have no idea how hard I fought the belief that someone would run for President of the United States, that wanted to destroy the United States and make her into something more like Russia. In my mind it was treason to even suggest it. But I have to believe my own eyes. I have to believe what I was trained to see, enemy tactics. These are not the policies of someone who is trying to get this country back on the road to prosperity. These are the tactics of someone who wants to lower us down to the standards of 3rd world countries in order to even the playing field.
I will do what I can, for as long as I can, and hope that it makes a difference. To save America is the only wish I would give to Make a Wish.
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