Poking the bear with a very short stick

Here's the truth. I'm trying to find a way to continue my insurance. But, even if I can, I have to figure out a way to pay over $400 a month to keep it. My understanding, and I hope to find more information about it tomorrow, is that Hospice is not free. So, whether I want to continue treatment or am done with this... I'll need insurance.

That... That jumble of facts, is what occupies my mind all the time. Kissing my wife, writing, singing, petting my God or praying to my dog... Wait. Switch those last two. I have never prayed to Belle. I would, however, be willing to pet my God if that's what He or She requested of me. That all invokes a theological discussion that no one really wants to picture.

Photo by Wahbi Elkout (Used without permission, sorry)

My emotions are running the gamut from anger to forgiveness and from happiness to despair. I'm not a real manic, but I play one for the sake of this blog. God continues to bless me, my family and my friends. The blessings, the gifts, become more and more obvious to me. But I become less and less likely to expect them. Does that make sense? It does to me. I don't mean that my actions or thought processes make sense, just that they way I explained it does make sense to me.

As God delivers again and again on His (yes, or Her) promise to be there for me, I worry more each time I'm in need of that rescue. Maybe there's a part of me that feels like I only have so many Get Out of Jail Free cards and I may have just used my last one putting that fourteen dollars of gas in our car and when the rent becomes due and we're a hundred dollars short God will just have to shrug. It's harder to try and roll doubles when you're living in your car.

Today my pastor Tony, his wife Elizabeth and a few friends stopped, gathered around me and prayed. It was overwhelming. This disease sometimes leaves you feeling so alone. Having friends, and teachers, touch your shoulder, talk to God on your behalf, some come to tears and then end with a hug and kiss to your cheek can leave one discombobulated. They are there for me. There is no question in my mind. But I don't call them for help.

Mostly, I think, it's a pride thing. I'm fat. I feel more and more useless every day. I can't bring enough money into our house to figure out how to get my wife a birthday present next month... let alone Christmas. Heck, we're trying to figure out a way to budget twenty dollars each and do just stockings for each other. I just don't want to call someone else on the phone and say, "I need help lifting those boxes," or the real and more true one, "I'm suicidal and I need someone to come over, hang out with me like this isn't happening, and play this old Xbox so that I don't due something stupid and screw up the life insurance I'm trying to leave for my wife." Let's not forget the fact that everyone else has a job, or no gas to get around if they don't, so seeing me isn't convenient for anyone.

In fact, nothing about my life is convenient for anyone. It's not just me. I've become, though they'd never admit it, a burden for Kristin and my parents. They're like fire-fighters in an old cartoon holding that big trampoline kind of thing, knowing I'm going to fall, running back and forth hoping to catch me. Of course, we all know that when I finally do fall I'll bounce off that thing they're holding directly to the sky and the arms of my waiting God. We all know that right?

I have some doubts now and then. I don't think you can actually have faith without having doubts. My doubts are, considering my situation, fairly rare and I always come back to the centered faith in a Saviour who gave up His life for my own. But they're there. (To bad I couldn't include "their" in that sentence.) If you believe whole heartedly in something, and have never had a doubt, I would encourage you to find one. Not to throw you off track, but to keep you on it. If what you have faith in is rooted in truth then all a doubt will do is make you examine your faith, find those roots and realize where the truth lies.

Wish us well, as I'm sure most of you do. By the end of this week, maybe the end of the day tomorrow, I'll know if COBRA popped it's head out and saw it's shadow. Which would, of course, mean eleven more months of insurance. Not that I have any idea how we'll pay for it or survive on what we're making. I don't know which is worse, keeping the insurance or losing it. The worst thing, I guess, would be not knowing either way.

I'm including Kristin and my Jingle Bell(e) video one more time. It was so much fun and she makes me smile with every "HA!HA!HA!":