What Once Was Lost
How many circles do we make during our lives? How often do we set out on a new journey, only to find years later we’ve come back round to where we started?
Perhaps our entire lives are nothing more than a series of inter-connecting circles, without visible start and stop points. We just zip around the curves and cautiously move through the intersections until we realize that the neighborhood looks familiar and ask, “Haven’t I been here before?”
After my dad’s first round of radiation therapy for his lung cancer, he gave me a little money with instructions to buy myself something really good. So I did. I splashed out for 50″ plasma TV – I even got a great deal on it! How did I live without it for so long? It’s a wonderful thing that I’m enjoying the hell out of lately, there just aren’t enough nature programs on to sustain my need for more high definition meerkats. I’ve also been re-watching some of my favorite movies and shows on the big screen, just to see them with fresh eyes.
In fact, the very moment I selected the TV to buy at the store, visions of a Lost marathon beckoned. Lost is the only complete TV series I own on DVD and I’ve already seen each episode many times. Still, I got excited at the notion of starting all over again, even mentioned it to my dad. It was a little surprising, the way his eyes lit up when he found out I owned them all. Apparently, he was a fan when the show first aired, but dropped off when my mom got sick. When he came back, he had no idea what was going on and stopped watching again.
He can’t be blamed, Lost is a show that needs to be watched in order.
I took the first two seasons over to him last week, when I picked him up for his first new radiation therapy appointment. After we got home and finished lunch, he ordered me to go home – so he could get comfortable (no pants) and watch some TV. The next morning on the way to the hospital, he chatted happily about the crash, the survivors and even shared some theories about the monster. I was under strict orders to neither confirm nor deny, so mostly I just nodded and agreed it was a most vexing mystery.
But his enthusiasm was very familiar. When Lost premiered – and for the six years it was on – I couldn’t pay a family member to be interested with me. But not this time! I’m up to season four and finding new things to love about Lost. Rose’s cancer is much more poignant this time around and I hear Prospector’s voice every time Desmond speaks. Hurley continues to be my hero and the following sequence is my absolute favorite Lost moment of all. I urge you to click the play button if you haven’t ever seen it and watch it all the way through, just to hear Michael Giacchino’s amazing instrumental rendition of Three Dog Night’s Shambala.
Now, I have something new and very special to love about Lost. Because he is bottled oxygen dependent, he doesn’t get out much except to go to the doctor and Andy has been bored. Dad looks forward to his afternoon block of Lost and I’m thrilled he has something to look forward to. Everyone needs a reason to get up every morning, everyone needs a little fun to anticipate. My dad now has Oceanic flight 815 to alleviate the seemingly unending parade of doctors that come with terminal cancer – on demand and with no commercials. It takes him away from the tedium of treatment and puts a smile on his face. I think that smile does as much healing as the doctors and their treatments.
I’ve come around again, back to where I started again. I am lost again and yet more found than ever. It’s not a bad thing, it’s not a step backwards. If life is a circle, you don’t go backward and forward, you just go round and round. Enjoy the ride!
Share this:
