What is your TIME worth?

It is not everyday I write and it is not everyday that I read, here there and other days I get knee deep in both. Why today over any other day? Basically as random thoughts enter my mind I write them out and some may form the main chapters I will build a book around and other days I will formulate a blog post like today.

My recent event included a funeral of a close friend, a friend who I have known the best part of all of my life, a friend who I did not need to know what they were doing each and everyday of their lives though a friend who when we got together we did catch up in a matter of a few minutes with a glance and a grunt or a few short words and then we were all caught up. We didn’t need to go in to things as we have known each other since childhood. That kind of a friend, perhaps you have some of them too.

Ah yes his death and the recent funeral.

As he has been laid to his final rest this past weekend it is only my perspective that I can deliver to you today. I can guess at how he might have been feeling over his past 6 months or so based upon how we had received a diagnosis involving cancer for him 6 months prior to today, almost 6 months to day.

We headed off to go visit his clinic to attend his doctor’s appointment. He didn’t drive so I had arranged with him to go with him for the doctor’s visit that morning. We made our way and were on time and found a lucky parking space right in front of the hospital where we needed to be. I said to him

“I will wait here until you come out and there is no need to rush or anything, I will be right here”.

To which he replied “Ah no man, I am not sure of my way around the hospital, come in with me in case I get lost”.

It was early enough that morning I think his appointment was for 10.15 am and I thought I would just close one eye and chill out and wait for him. Upon hearing his concern for getting lost, I thought of how he made a good point about it and there was a good chance he could get lost. I agreed to go in with him.

I got the necessary pay and display ticket and went into the hospital with him to find the clinic he was to attend and we met with the secretary and she told us where to sit and wait to be called.

He turned to me and said “When they call me you have to come in with me because I won’t understand what they are saying. You know me; I am not good with fancy words”.

I replied “Ah man this is your personal doctor visit and I will be right here waiting for you. If they get confusing you can ask them to explain to me after or something but I am not going in”.

The doctor came a called him and he grabbed my elbow to raise me up from my seat as he was getting up to go in, saying “come on man, I need you with me”.

Reluctantly though feeling very much on the spot I got up and walked into the doctor’s office with him.

With a few simple introductions of whom is who, two people in the office a doctor and a nurse were introduced to us and we made known to them why I was there too. And without very much hesitation the doctor proceeded with,

“We can confirm our suspicions and confirm that you have cancer”

That is what the doctor said and the remainder of our visit with him were the details of how the treatment process will work and what is now required of my friend going forward from that day.

We drove away from the hospital with a bit of a silence between us and then I decided to pull the car in off the road before we hit the motorway home.  I said “What do you want to do now? And who do you want to call first?” We called his next of kin; his sister who I could hear was beginning to shake in her voice after we told her the news. I asked again where he wished to go and what did he want to do and he said “let’s just go home and think about this for a while”.

Off we went.

In our journey home we discussed the matter and all kinds of possibilities and he told me thanks for coming in with him today that it meant a lot and helped him. He said “It softened the blow by you being there today, thanks for that”. I knew it was serious and a big ordeal for him and it was a surreal experience for me to sit in a meeting with a doctor and listen to a cancer diagnosis being given to be honest. My friend asked me would I help him through this cancer treatment and care for him if it gets messy and I agreed by telling him, I will be here and whatever we need to get done we will tackle it. Don’t be worrying and I encouraged him to get ready to begin a real fight and we can talk more as the process of treatment begins like the doctor had mentioned. Because of our route home I figured it was a good idea to visit with his other sister and tell her the news also as it was on our way home. When we got to his sister's house we told her and she was in shock though their other sister had already told her via speed dial I can imagine and a knock on the door came while we were visiting with her and it was another sister.  We left shortly after and I told him it is best now that all of your sisters know and I reiterated that it is going to take fight and strength and he agreed compounding my words with “I am going to fight harder than I have ever fought anything before, mark my words”.

Six months was the battle and yes I did offer you the spoiler alert earlier on as we did indeed bury him this past weekend. Through the six months of his therapies and medicines, I kept true to my word that I would be there for him and he kept true to his that he was fighting and following along whatever the doctors and nurses had said for him to do. For six months we have sat and listened to music passing the days and evenings and for six months we have been closer than ever before. He knew if he wanted to go somewhere or needed something all he had to do was call me up and I would respond with a “yes in five minutes” or I will be there in thirty minutes or whatever it was. Other times it was only a matter of sitting in his room while he fell in and out of sleep because of being tired after a chemotherapy session. He would call me up and say things like “Are you dropping down for dinner?” or “Do you want to come down for breakfast?” Sometimes I showed up because I felt he just didn’t want to be alone and other times he wanted to discuss the treatment and then other times he wanted to go through the Alexa thing and listen to hours upon hours of music from our childhood days.

There were days it was not about food nor about music, there were days I felt it was important to just be present and sit in silence and for nothing else, allow him know that somebody cared enough to pass time and be in his space with him.

Did this bring him strength? I do not know. Did this help in any way? I do not know.

For six months we did an everyday thing and when he wanted to do something we made it happen. When he did not feel up to doing anything, well then we simply did nothing. I could not give him new lungs and new organs or new voice box; the voice box was where the cancer began. When it came time I could not give him new bones either.

All I could do was be there for him in a capacity that I could be and that was to pass through time with him. To be a familiar everyday face for him and for him to know that his buddy was with him. A couple of chats on the phone each day and a few visits and plenty of cups of tea. That is what it took, TIME that is all I had to offer. Did it do him any good in the bigger scheme of things? Who really knows for sure? What I am aware of and what I believe in is that no matter what any persons says, does or thinks, I placed what I had on the line and that was time. What he had to place on the line was his life.

Things became worse for him through the few months and he was hospitalised eventually and the downhill spiral had begun. I presented myself as often as I could and he appreciated it. He would explain to me what the nurses and doctors were saying each morning and then ask me what does all of that actually mean? Many times I would let him know I would have to Google those things because things are beginning to sound too technical now and I am not sure. I knew they were not good signs and I did not want to worry him anymore, so in some of the instances I told him some versions of what we might call white lies. The hospital visits were coordinated with his family and so all were taking turns to pass through time and spend visiting hours with him. In many times in our lives there will be nothing more that we can do except share ourselves by sharing time with someone. If cancer had have been a person he would have strangled it with both hands, funny thing that he had a pair of hands that could choke an elephant literally, so to choke cancer would have been a great thing to watch him do. Nobody wants to die and definitely not at any kind of young age either. He fought it hard relying on his own attributes his own physical strength. Coupled with medicines he began to go down in his weight and the pain was not stopping. The spread of cancer was happening for him and there was nothing any of us could do for him. Annoy him with smart comments, piss him off with too much care and walk away and leave him in the hospital each evening because he was too ill to come home with us. Then came the more harsh suffering for him and when we listen to a friend when they are angry or upset because nothing seems to be taking away the pain, it can be a hard thing to do though we are not the ones in the pain, yet we can feel it too.

Then the end starts coming closer and it is ugly and disgusting to witness. Skinnier and less aware of what is going on and still whispering that he feels pain. We shared these times too and we acknowledged what we had meant to each other and we sat with some music, some more laughs at old stories and we sat passing time together.

The following became a wake and a funeral, these are things I promised myself I would not attend anymore in life though with him it felt like a true friend had been lost and who am I not to show respect and honour him? Every piece of him being brought home and laid out for a wake and his funeral mass ceremony were beautiful. The music and singing were breath taking and his graveside prayers followed with song over a speaker were moving too. What he deserved, a beautiful day with the sun shinning.

I share the experiences of the past six months with you in brief to shed some light on what it might mean in your own day to day living to be there for somebody. To share time in their space where they may be at. This is not about me and my friend being super close or having a bond from our youth. This is about what I believe the world ought to be like. People being there for people. How does anybody cope with anything if it is not for the helping hand of friends? Friendships that come and go and what does it mean to share time with someone in your life or not even in your life, somebody who needs the gift of time. I know now that all of my friend’s family wish for more time, why so? Because we never have enough of it to do all the things we want to do and we need to wake up and realize that there is a limited amount of it that we have been given and that we will also expire some day too. When they say things like “life is short” listen carefully and understand what it means. My friend was still making plans from his hospital bed, he had not given up and so for as long as he was not giving up then I was not willing to give up on him either.

This blog post is again about my random thoughts and to share with you some of my recent experiences to shed light, to bring up the topic of conversation of what are we really doing here? What are the tiny little things that we CAN do for another human being to make the journey a teeny bit easier? I can go about life doing all for myself and nobody else and I can go about wanting to be there for everybody possibly to buy my way in to heaven as they say (lol) I know this is not my agenda, I know I have no agenda. I simply see things like this; if I can do something today for another person then do it! If I cannot do something for another person then I will not do it.

I was not too busy to pass time with my friend who was on a faster path to death than me. I saw it like this, here is something I CAN do and it may mean so much more to him than it does me so WHY NOT?

I ask you do you ever consider others in this way and do you think that you have it inside of you to begin to see that life is so short that if you blink you might miss it. Slow down and take some time with your friends and family. Slow down and see that there is so much to be gained by doing nothing. Pass through time together and be there for someone because we will all come to the end eventually. This human race is not called race because there is a prize for being first or finishing ahead of everybody. The finish will come whether you rush it or not, therefore take some time and slow down and see what it is to be human first and then get involved with the “Rat Race”.

Get involved with others who might need some of your time and do not think that any piece of any day is in any way, shape or form a waste of time.

I am glad to have had the opportunity to spend time with my friend.