Wanting Life More

From Foxnews.com comes a story of a 17-year-old cancer patient. She and her mother are locked in a legal battle with the Connecticut state government because the teen has refused to have chemotherapy. Here's the article: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/01/05/connecticut-teen-with-cancer-forced-by-state-to-undergo-chemo-treatments/

On a related note, here's a story. In high school, Mom signed me up for CRAA (Cedar Rapids Aquatics Association) so that I could train at the Coe College swimming pool during the summer. I remember telling Mom that I wanted to be signed up for CRAA because I believed training over the summer would make me an awesomely fast swimmer during the high school swim season. In the same breath as stating my goal of being a fast swimmer, I would recite a litany of reasons why I was skipping practice.

I don't remember Mom forcing me to go to CRAA practices. I think she understood what I've come to understand over time. I realize now that Mom couldn't want me to do something more than what I wanted to do. If I really wanted to be an awesomely fast swimmer, I would have rarely missed any practices. Neither Mom nor Scott, my CRAA coach, couldn't want me to be an awesomely fast swimmer more than I wanted to be an awesomely fast swimmer. That's just the way it is. I know life was busy during those summers but if I really wanted to train, I would have made sure I allowed myself time to train.


Coming back to the story in the first paragraph, does the state of CT want this girl to be alive more than she wants to be alive? Ponder that thought.