“Now is the time to dream BIG.  Dream bigger than ever.  Don’t just dream for today and tomorrow, but for what you truly want years from now.  “

My wife is such an unselfish person and I have always been tough on her.  Begging for her to tell me what I could do to make her happy. “What do YOU really want”, I’d always ask.  Carpe Diem has never been in her vocabulary.  I love her for that.  She’s never been a high maintenance partner and now I want her to be.  Well I’ve always wanted her to at least tell me what I can do for her.  I know the simple things in life that she enjoys, but I want to hear about the bigger things.  This has been like pulling teeth.  Literally, pulling teeth since both of our dads were dentists.

It’s actually a hard thing for someone else who hasn’t dreamed that way before.  I had her watch Randy Pausch’s full lecture in which he tell us his dreams of being Captain Kirk, working for Disney and playing in the NFL.  Hearing her laugh while listening to a man who was dying tell you how he is living his dreams was therapeutic for me. Hearing her laugh and cry made me feel good. I had to remind her that she was listening to a man who was not going to live versus her, a person who IS going to live.  She would likely say what she wants for our kids.  That is what her mom would say.  I reminded her that none of what Randy Pausch says in his lecture has anything to do with his kids although the lecture is for his kids.

I think she gets it.  I think she now realizes that dreaming is not the same as “wanting”.  She can still be unselfish.  I’m just asking her to be positive.  No more glass half empty attitudes.  More Tigger and less Eeyore.  As a consultant I strategized for my clients based on scenario planning and expected outcomes.  Cancer has put many scenarios in front of us.  I want her to have scenarios with outcomes.  Some of those outcomes will be common no matter what those scenarios will be.  If she wants to go to Hawaii, there is no reason we can’t.  If she wants to drive a Porsche, there is no reason she can’t.  I just want her to tell me what she wants so that I can do my job as a husband and help her work toward those dreams.

Cancer is funny in this way.  I always joke to my wife that it doesn’t matter what I say.  She’ll always listen to someone else’s opinion first.  That is why I had her listen to Randy Pausch’s lecture.  She knows I love her so my opinions are tainted and that is true.  In that same note, I think she is listening to the cancer.  The cancer is telling her that life is too short to wait for it to come to you.  Sometimes you have to grab for it and savor it.

She just told me she was going to create one of her famous “to-do lists” today.  I just reminded her to make it BIG and not very easy to cross off each of them……