Hope

(Warning: Gratuitous movie clips ahead.)

The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. Now, you could write thesis papers on Shawshank and argue that it’s about just about whatever you want it to be about. But the main theme of the movie is hope. 

“Hope is a good thing,” says Andy, “maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.” 

And in the last few days, I’ve seen reasons for hope. 

Over the weekend, Julie was her normal self. But for the discoloration of her face and paws* from the hypersalivation, she looks and acts ever bit the old Julie. She’s perky. I woke up both Saturday and Sunday mornings with her asleep on my legs. She spent much of the day with me on the couch. She ate. She didn’t even seem too disturbed when I gave her the Palladia and Gabapentin. 

*Annie, our tricolor rat terrier, has seen her brown fade to white with age. We joke that she’s now a bicolor. Conversely Julie, a stunning black-and-white purebred tuxedo I somehow found on Craigslist, has turned into a tricolor. 

On Sunday, she and I spent at least an hour outside in the backyard, enjoying a hot summer day. She hasn’t shown the desire to go outside for the last few weeks. Must be a good sign that she has resumed her old adventuresome ways. 

Perhaps Julie is getting better. Perhaps she will make it six months, or even a year, as the oncologist said was the best-case scenario. Perhaps there is cause for real hope. 

But, as Red reminds me: "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."

Because I know that, while the recent developments are encouraging and amazing and fill me with happiness, the doctors are still the doctors and the cancer is still the cancer, and it will win in the end. 

All Julie and I know is that we have today. 

It’s time to get busy living, or get busy dying.