For those of you who haven't seen the Amazing Race reality show, it is about twosomes racing other twosomes around the world. The idea is to do everything really fast, in a super stressed kind of way, so that you can win the 'challenges', blow through a bunch of countries at mach speed (glancing briefly from left to right to take in the view), then literally run to the finish line. Tears, sweat, and fights are intended to be all part of the entertainment.
I take a fitness class at lunch, so I was thinking of this show as I tried to rush back into my clothes in a small bathroom stall, eat lunch, and get on with my work day. Then I thought of Mike and this was most certainly NOT his life approach. In contrast, he would get up early enough to linger over coffee and the Globe and Mail; make a labour intensive muesli breakfast and then eat very very slowly; carefully chose his 'look' for the day; walk just fast enough to get to work on time.... On our travels together, we did a lot of walking and sight-seeing but we were not even close to being on any race trajectory (ok- maybe for Mike's first coffee of the day...).
The picture above could not be more illustrative of this approach. This could also be called 'living in the moment'. Some might 'live in the moment' through sky-diving or other adrenoline-seeking pursuits. Mike preferred to slow down and 'get low'. Though Mike already had a lot of insight into this notion of savouring moments before his diagnosis, both he and I learned to live in the present as never before--in a way we could never have understood. We did this both as a way to imprint our time together in our minds but also as a way to cope. When you truly live whole-heartedly in precisely that present moment, there are no thoughts about the future. Here are a few more photos to capture Mike in life's non-race-- his 'moments':
It looks as though Lucas and Emily have learned from their Daddy....
how to savour the moment.
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