Anne’s Diary (Page 79)

It’s not often that you get a chance to start life over, especially not after you reach a “certain age.” But Whitley and I are doing it, and it’s exciting!
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I’ve been talking recently to a friend who survived breast cancer. Those of you who visit unknowncountry.com regularly know that I survived a potentially lethal brain hemorrhage in October, and spent about 6 weeks in the I.C.U. of a nearby hospital. My friend and I agree on one thing: no one wants to contract a serious illness, but real gifts come to those of us who do.
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I have always been puzzled by Christians who oppose the idea of disabled and severely ill people ending their lives. I feel this way about Terri Schiavo, the brain dead Florida woman whose parents oppose the removal of her feeding tube. One of the wisest things I ever heard about this was said by a woman whose husband had just died of prostate cancer: “At least he finally got rid of that awful body.” If these people believe in the existence of the soul, as they say they do, why are they so afraid to let the souls of those who are so damaged leave their bodies and journey to a better place?
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A lot of people have asked me how I’m doing, since I had a brain hemorrhage on October 16 and almost died. I’ve felt the wind of mortality blow past me, and once that happens, you’re never quite the same again, because you know that death really will come for you one day. I often think of the lines in the Emily Dickinson poem: “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.”
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