Our Priorities Are Different

Wes came up to me yesterday morning. I was expecting thanks for the pumpkin donut I'd left on his desk.

He patted his stomach and said, "I'm gonna have to opt out of the program."

And I thought, what? Oh. He's saying he doesn't want to gain any weight.

And I thought

DUDE. YOU'LL BE DEAD IN A YEAR!

And you're worried about leaving a fat corpse? Honey, the disease can whittle you down to skin and bones in no time flat.

I mean...it's true that none of us know Our Fated Moment, but Wes has more of a clue than most of us.

And I thought, dude! You'll be dead in a year. And a pumpkin donut scares you? Ube pie scares you? You'll deny yourself these little pleasures and adventures?

I shrugged and said, "Okay."

Later a few other things occurred to me. Mrs. Wes may have objected to some strange woman feeding her husband things with indecipherable writing on them. Wes truly may be watching his weight for fear it will make his breathing harder as the cancer keeps advancing.

But it goes deeper than that.

Wes is fighting. Wes has something to fight for. His wife. His many friends. To him, it's worth losing his once magnificent (he says) mane of hair, foregoing tastes of the day, and going through round after round of chemo.

I am not so sure I would take that path, were I in his shoes. I've seen way too many of my relatives go through disfiguring and disabling surgery, suffer the slings and arrows of chemo and radiation and I opt out of that program. At least that's what I say now.

Again, I shrugged.

I walked away. Dude, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.