After doctors only gave me two years to live, my dreams have changed….
I’ve always had strange dreams—for as long as I can remember. In elementary school, I didn’t understand them. But by the time I hit middle school, I knew they were something special. “If there’s one thing I hate,” my best friend said at lunch one day, “it’s hearing about people’s dreams. Booo-ring!”
Anyway, now that I have cancer, my problems have changed. Instead of wondering what to sew for a contest or how to tie up loose plot lines for a novel, I’m asking humanity’s oldest questions: What’s the point of life? What’s the point of MY life? What happens after I die? Where did it all begin? And what gives a life meaning?
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Right before my surgery last week, I thought about all of this. “What is the point—and why am I still here?” I thought. Oncologists are starting to say I actually might beat this. Yet, other patients—my friends who had much better diagnoses—have died while I’m still here. Maybe I’m having survivor’s remorse. I want to live, but I feel so badly for the people who have died.
I knew the dream would change my life. And several days after my surgery, I kept thinking about it—especially on one specific occasion. Mike brought me to a store, but the pain in my leg from muscle atrophy and severed nerves, made it nearly unbearable to walk. So—practically being a saint—Mike pushed me in a wheelchair.
At one point, he left me to look in one aisle as he went to another, and an eccentric woman came up to me. “Why in the world are you in a wheelchair?” she asked.
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beautiful low-cut dress that framed my bust. I’m sure I looked “the vision of health.” Despite this—and her intrusive questions that I didn’t NEED to answer—I told her about stage four cancer, previous and recent surgeries, and extreme fatigue from ongoing treatments.
“I never would’ve guessed. You don’t look like you have cancer. You’re too young. I feel so bad for you.” Then she went on and on.
Not long after, when Mike brought me to the car, tears filled my eyes. “What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
And as I told him how much I hate being pitied—and about the nosy woman in aisle seven—I felt my inner light getting dimmer and dimmer.
“What is wrong with people?” Mike asked.
“Wait,” I said. “You remember my dream about everyone having a light inside them?”
Mike nodded.
“I feel mine dimming. It’s metaphorical, but you know what I mean. All of the negative things I just felt and said, I need to counteract it.” So I started thinking of positive things. “I must seem very approachable,” I said slowly. “The woman felt at home enough that she could even ask me what’s wrong. AND she said she’ll never forget me or my story because she’d been focusing on unimportant things.” And the more Mike and I said—both agreeing to only be positive—the more I felt my inner light turning from a dim flicker to a blaze.
A few people have thought my dreams are “odd” or “the product of stress.” But I’ve found the lessons in them to be quite profound. Whatever someone might think, I do hope this is my purpose: to help people see the best in themselves and to realize God’s put something special in all of us—a divine spark. If my dreams have taught me anything, it is that life is far too short to spend time dimming our lights with negativity. Why not dwell on the positive and let joy light the way?
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| See My Review Dreams - I've been known to interpret my own, so, I'm a believer in dreams and also, if you are open to it, having God Speak to you through your dreams. So, even though Elisa allow doubt as she wrote this story, I think it was indeed a God Incident for her... For certainly, anybody who has gotten to know her, through her books, or especially at Facebook, have to realize that she has been given a gift from God to spread "good news" about having cancer... No, not about a possible healing, which certainly could happen, but, in my opinion, more importantly, sharing her own life experience to all of us who are scared whenever the word cancer enters into our lives... I've had two operations to remove tumors that could easily have turned cancerous if they were not caught in time. And I thank God for getting me into a place where I had to put my own personal health above doing what I loved to do... Write Reviews and share about books. Like Elisa, I've had some experiences through dreams that have changed my life... And that is really the key to it, don't you think? We need to keep our mind and body in good health physically and emotionally so that we can do all that is needed to keep our life moving forward... BTW, some of you may recognize this article from a recent post. I grabbed it and got Elisa's permission to use it... I've included a song that will always remind me of my mother... Beautiful Dreamer... I remember when we'd be heading to Ohio or some other place where it took a long time to get there... We would all be tired of riding and quiet. All of a sudden, my Mom would call out, "Do you all want me to sing...and then she would begin singing Beautiful Dreamer. It's funny, all of her kids could sing, but she really sounded awful and we'd all moan and tell her to stop... Now, as I'm looking back, remembering, I'm wondering if she might have just sang it that way so we would brighten up and laugh...or maybe her age had changed her voice, as my has since I've reached and pass her age when she died...Either way, that song will always speak to me... Thanks to Elisa for allowing me to put together this music script to go along with her words... Much love to you for your positive words shared, girlfriend! God Bless Gabbi |
