At some point in our lives we imagine our deaths. We don’t have to be morbid or suiciudal. It’s normal. It shows we are in touch with the realities of life. Death is one of those realities. 

I don’t think about my death every day but I do think about it seriously. When I think about my death I tend to think more on my life and how I lived it. 

You see, when someone dies people remember their lives in a sort of montage way. Where they stepped into the person lives and the ups and downs they may have shared gets played back and may even by painted with an emotion or two. They become the history of that person. 

When I remember some of my friends and relatives, I remember a life that has been lived. I remember the things and times I shared and I piece together the story of a life that was lived. For better or worse. 

My mother I remember through a child eyes and all the way up to my thirties. I replay some of her achievements and her failures. All with the affection that a daughter has for her only mother. 

But as I look back on my own life I feel as though I was robbed of a ‘full’ life and my story goes along, up and down, always changing and always evolving. Birth. School. Teenager. Twenty somethings. Career. College. Marriage and then… Stopped! 

Everything comes to a stop with the onset of these diseases and then my life just ‘disappears’. And the years tick by to that ultimate expiry date. 

Those who once knew me will probably remember this dynamic and flawed person gaily living life and laughing until one day she just disappeared. And she was rarely seen again until the end. 

When I think of my life like this I can’t help feeling a mixture of sadness, frustration and anger. I am sure anyone else in this situation will understand and probably feel something similar. 

What other people seem to overlook is that these diseases TAKE lives. 

They leave gaps in families. Holes in relationships. Empty spaces at celebrations. And they leave pain in the hearts of those who have had their lives taken away. 

That’s why I feel such confusion and desperation when I wonder WHY isn’t more being done to fix and cure these terrible diseases???

We spend billions protecting our property and safe guarding our possessions. What about spending just as much in protecting and saving the lives of so many millions of people who have been stripped of their lives and their loved ones. 

I remember watching a movie where a group of American Marines said that they “don’t leave a man behind” and then mounted a dangerous and expensive crusade to return him or his body to his family. Why won’t we do that for everyone? 

Whatever it takes. Whatever it requires. Whatever happens… I am determined to do my part to never leave one man or woman behind in my bid to return us all to the lives and our loved ones as we deserve. No price is too much. No missions more worthy. No one war has taken more lives than the one we currently fight today and every day. It’s a war we can’t afford to lose. 

I hope you will all join me. 

Gentle hugs, 

Trish.