My Lifelong Experience - Blaine
There’s good news, there’s bad news and there’s information you receive that you wish didn’t exist. The latter was delivered to me earlier this year, when I was told I have Motor Neurone Disease (MND). I’ve had better deliveries.
After being told you have an incurable disease…you cry. Preceded by the sheer disbelief of how a 37 year old man get something this bad, this young. We only just started building our family, as the twins were pandemic babies and we’ve been trying for more.
I felt that I didn’t have much to leave them also. I’m not rich, not do I come from money. I’ll write a book for them! That’s it! Some life lessons that I feel could help them in years to come, plus a breakdown of their old man’s life. That idea lasted all of 24 hours, as the realisation of the work required, dawned on me. My time is limited so I have to maximise the little I have left, so I parked it.
Father’s Day arrived, it was a lovely day! When I was Googling a last minute gift for my Dad, an ad for Lifelong came up. Straight away I thought this is kind of what I need to fulfil my wish to leave something intellectually valuable and tangible for my kids.
After putting in a query, I heard from them more quickly than expected, as I got a call the very next day from Diana. It was a really good call. Hearing from helped with my decision as I learned the owner of the business, started it in honour of his father.
Fast forward two weeks and I had started the interview - cue deep inhale/exhale - and it was emotionally tough to get through the interviews. This was because I had to confront aspects of my life that had been effectively boxed away, plus I had to fully accept my pending mortality.
It was beautiful connecting with family and some close friends in ways that I hadn’t imagined before. As my physical muscles began to sink and grow weaker, the emotional ones got stronger and this allowed all my relationships to increase in quality. Cherry on top, my brother and I were finally able to spend a day in eachother’s presence, without ripping the other to shreds. Mum is surely smiling from heaven, watching that.
From the bottom of my heart, I’m utterly terrified about leaving my family, but being able a piece of me via Lifelong for the twins, is something that gives me comfort and reduces my fears about the kids not remembering who I am/was.
In hindsight, one shouldn’t have to be on the verge of dying to do something like this. Our lives are full of so much action, history and incidence that anyone from their middle ages and upwards should do something similar.