Once in a Lifetime

I sit and stare down at the blank screen before me. My mind filled with all the moments in history that I could go back and change. The most devasting of wars, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, mass shootings, the list seems endless. Then I debate what to change, what aspect of each of these should go differently.

Suddenly it dawns on me, I cannot change any aspect of history, because if I do, I am altering a part that we might need. Yes, each event this world has experienced has happened for a reason and it is not up to me to change that. What if I made things worse, a more heinous catastrophe happened than the one I chose to alter. What if other things didn’t happen because of my choice. No, if the events should not have taken place, then I have to believe that God would have intervened.

So, back to square one. Then I realize there is one thing I can go back and change that would only affect this one person. To change, adjust, alter just one aspect of this person’s life and it would directly affect no one other than them. Friends and family would live their lives as they did. The world would continue to progress and change, as it has. The only effects of this alteration would be to this one individual.

I take my opportunity to go back to September 2008, the day my wonderful older sister and best friend received a terminal medical diagnosis. I would take this chance to go back and change the results of the tests and labs she received just after Labor Day that year. A diagnosis that she should never have received. At the young age of just 54 years old my sister, who never smoked a day in her life, was told she had Stage 4 Lung Cancer that had metastasized to other major organs.

Changing the prognosis, the results, the diagnosis would allow her to see her golden years, work towards her life’s goals and follow her dreams. She would see her 55th birthday and all the others that followed.

Yes, this is the right choice to make, to give a loving, outgoing, smart person back her life.