It is almost Valentine's Day. Some people send love letters to each other. Others think about their love lives. Shy adolescents use this once-in-a-year opportunity to make it known, through allusive means, like a little flower or a postcard, their attraction to someone. Their gesture is fueled by enormous erotic desires, which will channel them, later on, towards having a family. And children. And, decades later, grandchildren, who will be the light of their eyes.
Old couples, on Valentine's Day, look back at their lives together with tears of happiness in their eyes, dreading the devastating moment when one of them will no longer be there. They have said "I love you" so many times, that, for them, it has become like a second nature. "You are here for me, and I am here for you. We're one." What can be more beautiful, more inspiring, than seeing octogenarians holding hands in Central Park, looking into each other's eyes and thinking: "I am so glad I met you!"? As I reflect back to what I accomplished last year, I cannot help thinking how I can make the future better for me. I want a job with a lot more spare time. I want to use this spare time to enjoy life. To travel more. To stroll aimlessly through the city. To buy odds and ends from Filene's. To check out the iPad. To write another book. To play another song at the guitar. To stare at people in Washington Square. To smoke pot in Amsterdam. To have a coffee in the Village. To love more and be loved more. I have the formidable luxury to afford to have such desires. It is a luxury most of us on this forum have, yet few appreciate it. It is the luxury of having the gift of life. It is the luxury of having some certainty that you are going to see the light of day tomorrow. Not all have this luxury. The devastating situation of Daniel Raduta has affected me deeply, putting my little desires in a new perspective. His harrowing blog, written so analytically, so funny even, so detached, as if he were hiding from himself, has brutally reminded me how little we, the lucky ones, value what is the most important thing in the world: health. We live comfortable lives. We spend on lunches and dinners at restaurants with no second thoughts. We buy stuff that we'll never use. We rent movies that we don't watch till the end. We pay for cable that we hardly use. We tip when we shouldn't. We throw out food from our fridges. While we're doing all these, life dries out from Daniel. Each second passed gets him closer to the death sentence. I wish him to live the day his baby is born. I wish his pregnant wife to see him alive and well till both of them reach eighty and get tired of playing with their great-grandchildren in Cismigiu. I wish him to go back to the drawing board and write the code for another antivirus. I wish him to be able to buy the future versions of iPhone, iPad, Google phone, and Kindle. I wish him to enjoy a cold beer on Lipscani on a hot summer day. I wish him to hum the song "I Only Have 100 Years to Live". I dearly wish him to be taken over by the small challenges of life. I want him to get mad at nasty clerks, at mortgage bills, at inflated rents, at flat tires, at bursting pipes in his bathroom, at dead elevators. I want him to get angry with his children for not studying hard enough to get good grades. I want him to get mad at his wife for overcooking the steak. I wish him to get angry with the Romanian bureaucracy, with himself for forgetting his mother's birthday, with Greece for making the Euro drop in value. I really wish him to get mad at all these little things. Because, if he does, it means he made it. It means that what is eating him alive now, is no longer there. It means that he could go back to going through life like the rest of us. If that happens, it also means that WE were able to help. We are a few hundred people on this forum. I have a few more hundred people in my address book. Ten dollars from everyone would mean a few thousand dollars closer to his goal of reaching the sum he needs for a bone marrow transplant. This is his last resort to treat his leukemia. Unlike us, he does not have the luxury of time. He needs us now. Cezar ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Daniel's blog: http://danielraduta.ro/ Diagnosed with leukemia: a few months ago. Prognosis: poor without a bone marrow transplant. Your donations can be sent to the following accounts at Banca Transilvania in Romania. EUR: RO72BTRL06404201F02712XX RON: RO57BTRL064013HAF02712XX OR PAYPAL: [email protected] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
