Becoming An Answer

Life, I am sure, provides challenges and questions for all. No matter what it is, each of us has a struggle, and those struggles continue, regardless of their name. I know there are only a handful who read these musings, and that is not likely to change. But readers and non-readers alike, we are united by a bond I've come to know. Challenge, whether it arises from divorce, disease, death or some other disaster, is just around the corner. It's part of the human condition. Those challenges may come and go, but I have found one that Michael J. Fox likens to watching a bus bear down on you, while you stand stock still. It is coming and you know it. You can choose your means of preparing for it, or choose not to prepare at all. You can imagine it will only graze you or you can imagine it will lay you flat. In the mean time, it marches toward you at a pace and with weapons you can't necessarily predict. The certainty is only that it's coming.
But in the face of it you have a decision to make. Will you be a question, an example of the difficulty it provides, or will you be an answer. I have spent time on both sides now—studying the downstream effects of my own crisis, and looking for ways out. I have decided the likelihood of a cure or an escape for my own particular challenge is remote, and that doesn't set me apart from most humans with challenges. Many of them are dealing with things that simply can't be undone—they have happened, and they cannot be changed.
Dealing with these events can seem a passive pursuit. "It's over. It happened. Deal with it." Just react and get it behind you. My view has changed, after yet another sobering television show on Frontline—Dave Iverson's "My Father, My Brother and Me." I know now that I won't question my challenge. I will become an answer. Who I am, what I do, where I go—my life will be an answer.