Tonight I walked home with four large bags of expired tea in varying flavours. The weather is warming up and the inevitable threat of rain that accompanies the start of spring was hanging in the air. I had stayed out later than I had expected but really it was to be expected. I had gone over to a friend's house. as earlier in the day I had agreed to drop in during the evening. I phoned just before leaving. "You're coming?" she asked, "Good, I've got a mission for you." Click.
When I arrived I found that I was not the only one over and she was working on a script. We're going to film a video for YouTube, I was informed. Of course we are. I pointed out that I was slumming it in the fashion department but was overruled. So her niece and I went through the script a gazillion times trying to get it just right. The "director's" mother was up visiting and had brought a stash of cookies. So the two of us working on fine-tuning the script raided the fridge for milk and sat and ate cookies while arguing about split infinitives. The director finally yelled at us to stop. We were making it too complicated. We looked up mid-cookie bite and said, "But you asked us to edit it."
Finally we started filming. Despite the inevitable giggle-fit and the technical failures, it looked like we had a final product. We had fun doing it. We laughed until it hurt, we called each other names, there was some physical violence, and we assured each other that we all looked wonderful on film. It was a great time.
Except that none of us should have been there this evening doing what we were doing.
Life is funny. Its twists and turns take us all down different paths. Sometimes the paths are of our choosing and other times, it's due to the decisions of others. And then there are the curve balls that life throws us. Sometimes we can hit them to the outfield and sometimes life strikes us out.
We were making a film because last February my friend was diagnosed with MS. We were making a video about her story. We were having fun because her world got turned upside down and inside out. Today she started her treatment. From now on, she has to give herself a needle injection once a week. She has a massive bruise on her leg and she's popping painkillers to counter-act the side-effects from the drugs. Her mother is in town to make sure she's ok. Her mother is discussing how and when she should give herself the next injection. The rest of us are discussing fundraising efforts and who's raised what money.
Right now she can take on the world. She's brave. However, she's scared. Life, like any good pitcher, didn't give her a warning, but threw one straight down the pitch. STRIKE! but it's strike one. She's re-arranging her batter's stance and she's getting ready to swing again. Like any good fans, we're calling the umpire names and we're trying to distract the pitcher. We know the score but we're only in the first half of the second inning. There's the whole rest of the game to go.
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