For a moment I felt a little sick about the damage I did to my van on Thursday. But just for a moment did I stress about the front right headlight that is now detached from the body of my vehicle, in dire need of repair. It’s the hassle of one day fixing the damage that bothered me most, not the blemish that so visibly graces my car. It’s seven years old, after all. This is just one of many scratches and dents that add personality to my family ride.
My minor accident, caused by a wooden pole I nailed while backing out of a parking spot at Joey’s school—”Ouch,” I saw written on the face of one mommy onlooker—is truly minor. In the whole realm of life and death, it’s nothing really. It’s a car. Just a car. I’m not sitting in a chemo chair, not combing my hair out in handfuls, not holed up in a hospital room with plummeting blood counts. I’m not receiving massive doses of radiation so that I can live to watch my boys grow up. I’m not overcome with fear and panic. And I’m not swallowing a daily anti-depressant just to cope. Nope. I’m simply driving a mini-van that looks a little more like a jalopy than it did a few days ago.
Life is just a matter of perspective. For me, it’s a matter of cancer perspective—which makes the fact that various parts are dangling off my Honda Odyssey nothing but simple stuff.