Limits and Limitless

Limits and limitless.  Does everyone realize that we are all BOTH?  My husband HATED being defined by the multiple illnesses that he had.  He was determined to be remembered for far more than a collection of medical issues. 

I wish to throw out the question for thinking.  Don't our limits define us...not in total...and certainly not completely, but at some point in all of our lives we will be confronted with real, all too real limits.  When this happens it does become part of us.

I have been disabled by COPD (Chronic Obsructive Pulmonary Disease), Degenerative Spinal Disease, two very funky knees, carpal tunnel in both wrists, Fibromyalgia and a bout of breast cancer.  There HAVE been times when much to my chagrin I have let these limits define me, enclose me, and make it impossible for me to reach out to other human beings.

I have begun to realize that these challenges ARE an important part of me.  Yet I choose to focus on the limitless instead of the limited.  What?  Each and everyone of us have unlimited assets.  In my example I have unlimited hugs, and kisses that I can give.  I have unlimited winks that I can give small children trying to make them feel more at ease. 

I have unlimited imagination, which can take me anywhere that I wish to go.  (Think of a small, bored, wheezing child before she could read, and before there were any interesting television programs on during the day, ESPECIALLY for children.) 

One of my inspirations NOT because he shared my malady, COPD, virtually no immune system, allergic to the world...but because of the way he chose to focus on his limitless instead of his limits.  Robert Louis Stevenson.  Did you know that he wrote "Treasure Island," having NEVER EVEN SEEN A TROPICAL ISLAND?  He wrote his books often from bed, many times through the thickness of fever, and struggling to breathe.  Yet his limits did NOT define him in total...he WAS disabled, but more importantly he was also limitless.

I realize that limit vs. limitless is an oxymoron.  How can you be limited AND limitless?  By making use of conscious choice. 

Nyle, my beloved husband, was in a terrible car accident.  He broke 12 ribs (that's every rib on the right side of his body), destroyed his back on about 5 levels, (they had to do surgery and repair his back.), broke his right arm, AND his right shoulder.  He had a punctured lung, and countless injuries to all of his other organs.  He was in the hospital for 6 weeks. 

Less than 6 months later he rehearsed and was in an extremely physical part in a play.  Nyle ADORED the cretive process of rehearsal and acting.  He actually danced with all those ribs a jangling.  (Most severely broken ribs NEVER completely heal.  So they constantly shift and move and irritate muscle and nerve around them.  He was still supposed to wear a back brace, nope that wasn't on.

YES, there was risk in his action.  He faced the closely calculated risk of further injuring himself.  Yet his seemingly limitless ability to face down his challenges and do what he loved anyway served him well.

I'm certain that if you read my blog you may get a bit tired of Nyle as an example.  Get over it!  He was, and is an example to me of courage under pressure.;  Plus since his death speaking about him helps me to cope with the seemingly limitless amount of grief that I feel.

I AM limited in the joy that I feel in this part of my life.   I miss Nyle on a cellular level.  It feels as though all my corpuscles will simply collapse in on themselves sometimes.  Yet the sun is shining, the spring enhanced green of the world outside my door tells me to have hope.  I count all of my limitless assets (I can go for limitless walks....sometimes really close to my home but I can WALK!"  I can write limitless blogs (aren't you readers so very fortunate....hee hee), I can write limitless books.  Best of all I can chose to take Nyle with me throughout my day.  I can hear his laughter in my mind.  I can close my eyes and hug him tight....one of his LIMITLESS hugs that engulfed you with a magical type of love.  I have limitless memories of life with my beloved and I choose to let them keep me from deep despair over his loss.

I'm choosing today to focus on my limitless possibilities  It's NOT denial....I am sharply aware of my limits.  The pain that I live with always, my wheezy, asthmatic lungs, my awful financial situation.  Being DISabled by so much medical stuff that often it feels as though it will simply inhale me.  (I have spent THOUSANDS of hours trying to cope with the red tape of insurance, and medical bills....THOUSANDS of hours....that I will NEVER get back!)

I am a happy ending sort of writer, and human.  My beloved daughter said yesterday, "There is ALWAYS a happy ending for everyone.  I wish that were true on this earth.  Yet I KNOW with my heart and soul that there IS a happy ending for everyone...it may not be while they are on this earth.  Yet I KNOW that all things will be made right...even having to face life without my darling.  (When I die and we are reunited I will be hanging on to him for at least the first limitless part of eternity!  I won't let him out of my sight...lol)

The happy ending I choose to end my ruminations with is to remind you of the beginning.  Limited or limitless?  We are both, but which do we make the conscious choice to focus on?