Barb Caffrey's Blog

When I woke up this morning, I started my normal routine. The aches and pains I live with, the overall frustration of still looking for a place while attempting to help my ill family member, and of course the grief I will always have over the loss of my beloved husband Michael are always there. (Sometimes I wake up and wonder where Michael is, not as in, “What is the Other Side and what could he be doing there?” but “He was just here, in the dream! Where is he now?”)

Life is often frustrating. But it has moments of joy, too. And those moments can be ripped from you in a heartbeat if you don’t pay attention to your health or the folks you most care about in order to chase meaningless things (like trying to keep up with a famous Internet star or content creator; it’s great that they do what they do, but there’s nothing wrong with what you do either and you don’t have to do the same things in order to have value or create meaning in your life.)

The reason I say all this is that I read a very insightful column by former NBA star and basketball Hall-of-Famer Chris Bosh, which is the first post he’s written at Substack in over four years. Here’s a bit from that:

I was walking from my closet into the bathroom, getting ready for an evening out, when my body turned on me. A numbing sensation shot down my left leg, that sharp, electric feeling you get when you bump your funny bone. Before I knew it, I was on the floor.

I slowly came to in a pool of my own blood while my wife frantically spoke with 911. I tried to move my body the way I always had, and it didn’t respond.

There was no choice but to surrender. It was a terrifying event, something I had never experienced before. That’s when the realization hit me, everything can collapse at a moment’s notice. There’s not always a warning. There’s not always a symptom or a buildup to let you know what’s coming. One moment you’re walking. The next moment, you could be gone.

He’s right.

He later discusses that there are a whole lot of things people pay attention to in this life that don’t matter one bit. The important things are ones that we sometimes take for granted, like health, the health of our loved ones, enough time to spend with our loved ones, and doing things that edify us rather than gratify us. (Though if you love learning, as I do, it can be both sometimes.)

What Chris Bosh and his wife went through was scary, to say the least. And if a former professional athlete, one who’s always taken excellent care of his body (or he’d never have been able to do the remarkable things he did on the court to make a living), can have this happen, any of us can.

(As if I didn’t know that already, considering what happened to Michael. But I digress, because it’s important to be reminded of our core truths sometimes.)

I left a comment there about how I understood, and about two of my best friends, who’ve suffered the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” health-wise, and some of the limitations they have. (I also briefly sketched some of the limitations I have.)

The important thing, though, is that we’re still alive to do whatever we can. I survived a pulmonary embolism, which not everyone can do (I was told how lucky I was in the ER a few years ago). Chris Bosh just survived this scary and disturbing experience. My friends Kat and Lika have survived illness, misdiagnoses, lots of frustration and pain, and the loss of being able to freely move about and do whatever they want to do without having to plan for the energy expenditure first.

Make no mistake: when you have to constantly “ration your spoons” (referring to “spoon theory,” here; Google it), life changes for you and seemingly gets smaller.

But that’s only seemingly. The world is still wide, still has possibilities and accomplishments, still has something of value to offer, and most importantly, we still have something important to offer to it, too.

We have to try to smell the flowers, as cliched as that phrase is. We have to figure out who matters most to us, and let them know that, and value them and honor them, before it’s too late to do so. We also have to figure out what is the best use of our time, energy, and resources, and spend more time on that and less time on nonessentials like doomscrolling. (Though there often is a lot to doomscroll about, it doesn’t do much good and wastes our precious time.)

In my case, I am trying to save what energy I have to write, edit, comment, and also compose music on the side (that I can play myself, though if all goes well, someday I hope to hear someone else or maybe a band or even an orchestra play it once I flesh it out a little). These are the important things in my life.

Of course, I still have to do things like food shopping, laundry, care for my ill family member, care for my health, etc. Those things don’t go away. But I can perhaps approach them a little differently and be grateful I’m here to still do them…at least some of the time. (None of us can be grateful for chores all of the time. Even Mother Theresa had days she didn’t want to do her job if I remember some of her quoted comments right. And I’m sure some of what she did seemed like a chore for her.)

The important thing is what we do while we’re here. The people we love. The activities that make us go, give us life, and give us a reason to get up in the morning despite the pain and stress.

That’s why I loved Chris Bosh’s Substack column today, and hope you will, too.