“Wake Up, Wake Up, Wake Up. ‘Cuz It’s Da First of Da Month…”

Yesterday was the First. Did everyone have a good First of the Month?

I’m a bit late, yes. I know.

I got a new camera from my Husby. Well, New to Me kind of “new.” A Nikon D70s. So I’ve been playing around with it and learning to shoot then edit in Aperture. Mostly taking a lot of “reflection series.” I think it’s a skill to be able to shoot yourself Myspace-style with a “real” camera.

Firsts…reflections… It got me thinking about things.

Well, FIRSTLY (lots of this word in just the FIRST few minutes… repetitive much?), let me tell you about my most recent, terrible fright.

While I was sleeping the night away on 11/30, a dream attacked me savagely. (I’m almost crying, thinking about it now.) We were celebrating Yuletide with our family in Victoria, Canada with an ailing, but very venerably aged 96 Gram, when my father broke the news to us that he was diagnosed with Lung Cancer, and that doctors had given him months–no, weeks!–to live. He would pass with a violent, painful end sometime around Valentine’s Day.

I don’t remember the details much, but I remember white halls of a hospital and doctors leaning over a very tube-covered patient I once knew as my little father (he is shorter than I am). The hot and many tears woke me up, my chest was tight and racked with pain. Tried as I might, I couldn’t get the image of my father ending before my eyes out of my head. I knew my dream was supposedly just a dream, but I couldn’t let it lay like a dirty, fetid, sleeping dog.

You see, my father, who is a normally healthy fellow, had an injury when he was a toddler that caused his spine to curve, or curl upon itself near his neck, giving him a hump back and scrunching his rib cage so that all his organs squished into a smaller than average torso. I believe it’s called Kyphosis, a defect of the spine which causes extreme curvature. He also has a deformed chest… it’s kind of shaped like a Mayan pyramid. Because of his cramped organs, he has developed Congestive Heart Failure, often gets Walking Pneumonia, developed Asthma, and was diagnosed a year or two ago with Panlobular Emphysema. He hasn’t smoked a day (well, maybe a day, but that’s it!) in his life. He’s a semi-vegetarian and lives in a healthy, warm climate. He walks several times a week, and is relatively stress free.

But this Emphysema diagnosis threw me when I learned of it.

How could someone who’s practically never smoked get a “smoker’s disease”?

So, as ridiculous as it sounds, in my dream lung cancer didn’t lay outside the realm of possibility. And for him to die of it was entirely possible. Hey, it’s a dream!

But the terror I felt when I woke up was real. I awoke at 4:30, shaken, and couldn’t get back to proper sleep until about 6, which is about 45 minutes before I wake up then snooze.

Frantic, I went about my normal routine in a haze, my morning agenda items ticked off in haphazard and scattered fashion. My reports and conversations were a blanked out mess.

At 9:30, I dialed my dad, hoping he’d still be in bed (he lives in San Diego, 3 hours time difference from Detroit). Thank the Universe, he was!

On the verge of tears, I asked him, “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I miss your mum. She’s at the Lawrence Welk Resort until Thursday.”

“No, Poppy, is everything okay? Are you sick?”

“No! Why would I be! I’m just sleepy,” he said, trying to explain his croaking voice.

I told him about my dream, and he started laughing, which did not put me at ease.

“It was just a dream, anak*, I’m fine. I’m healthy enough, other than the normal cuff and whizzing. Stop worrying. I’m fine!”

*(“Anak” means “child” in Tagalog, my father’s native language of the Philippines; and he has an accent on certain words, though he is completely American in the rest of his diction and accent.)

—

So my dad is okay. My dream was just a freakish moment of my stresses manifesting themselves in a nightmare.

It got me thinking about the First of the Month, which the First of the Year is around the corner.

How often do things like this–life-aware moments–make us resolve to do things better? And in addition, how many of those resolutions actually stick? Instead of waiting until a life-changing event, or until the first of the year, why don’t we just start LIVING better for ourselves… now? I can’t wait until my dad’s health could possibly dive for me to start calling him and my mum more often, let them know how much I love them. I can’t wait until my friends move across the world, out of my timezone, to start letting them know regularly how much I think of them, and how much I wish we were all together. I can’t wait till a job opens up to start honing my skills so I can get a better salary. I can’t wait until I get a book about xyz to start trying to learn abc concept–which will make me a more accomplished young woman… I can’t get a job in the creative world without knowing how to create… right?

I can’t run a marathon without starting to run right now. So I strapped on my shoes and ran a mile and a half, and made mental plans on how to reach my marathon goal by next December–for lupus sufferers all over the world, and for the lupus sufferer in myself!

I’m not waiting till after the holidays to get better at life. I resolve to get better at life right now.

I think that’s a more powerful style statement than any “statement necklace” or “statement IT bag” or “statement shoe” that the Actress of the Moment has been scoped wearing in the latest glossy mag.

Living better is a style statement that can’t, and shouldn’t wait.