It astounds me to see the hurdles people take on. Marathons, rock climbing, volunteer fire fighting, and surgical work in third world countries all take enormous grit. Yet brave souls continue to storm into the fray. As a non running, feet on the ground, emergency avoidant kind of gal those people have my respect. 

 

What is their motivation? Do most of us want a lubricated path through life, or are we itching for the chance to wrestle with uncertainty? 

 

Sometimes these stories fall in my path on the same days that I hear about unasked for troubles. Disease, financial shortfalls, and mental illness all seem to show up when you had better things to do. A friend mentioned that she is praying hard for a neighbor's daughter who is in treatment. Another  man I care about is recalibrating his life around a disability. The news is heavy with natural disasters, refugees, and poverty. Families worn down by loss, looking for a place to lay their heads in safety. There are instances where people choose to rid themselves of worldly possessions, while for others the decision is made for them by a blaze. 

 

Is the only distinction between personal challenges and those thrust upon us that swiveling fulcrum of free will? 

 

A couple who lost their daughter to cancer decided to ride their bikes across the country. Not an easy assignment. It would be captivating to hear their thoughts after three thousand miles. The caravans of immigrants that trudge up from South America log as many, but theirs is not so much about choice as survival. How would a conversation between those two parties play out? 

 

As long as I am asking for impossible things, what would such a conversation be like a hundred years from now? Those who pursued physical danger, and exhaustion, with people for whom those circumstances hijacked their lives in a different direction? 

 

There is a TED Talk about seeing dead people. The doctor who has been at the bedsides of thousands of patients as they transitioned from this life told about what they saw, and whom they talked to. He admitted that he did not choose this topic. It chose him. One woman was near death when she cradled a baby he could not see, named Danny. Her sister later explained that that was the name of her first son who died at birth, that she never spoke about. A man who was a veteran of WWII, had long carried the enormous weight of the fallen soldiers he had dragged from the shores of Normandy back to the ship in 1944. Yet a few days before he passed, a soldier he did not recognize reassured him. 

 

"The soldiers are coming for you."

 

It seems that there are painful circumstances that have festered for ages, that can somehow find resolution. The doctor explained that for these people who are visited by their loved ones, little is spoken but much is understood.