Up, Up, Up (For Zach Sobiech)

I always tell people that I don't want to have kids, because they're loud and annoying and dirty. But, the truth is, I don't want to have children, because being a parent scares the shit out of me. I never understood how some girls were just "born" to be mothers. How can you just come to a point in life where you can say, "Yeah, I'm ready to have kids now. Send them my way. I'm ready to make decisions that will affect the life of Child A. I'm ready to devote the rest of my life into somebody else's life." I don't know if I'll ever come to a point in life when I'll be ready to say that, but I have mad respect for parents everywhere. Especially mothers, not because I'm sexist, but because, somehow, mothers seem to have two hearts: one for regular stuff, like family and friends, and one separate heart for their children. And when the heart for their children fills up, they make room in their other heart. It's amazing how much a mother, or father, will give up in order to love their child and to give their child happiness. 

Parents give up everything to love their children, and when they lose a child, I can't even begin to imagine the pain and agony they endure. I've never lost anyone that I was really close to, but I've lost a pet rabbit named Fluffy. I remember crying for straight a week whenever somebody mentioned her. To lose a child? I can only relate it to losing maybe a million Fluffy's. 

Soulpancake, on Youtube, with director Justin Baldoni, documented the beautiful story of Zach Sobiech, a 17-year-old boy who was slowly passing away from osteosarcoma. After being diagnosed with a remission, or a spread of his cancer, Zach made the choice of quality over quantity; Zach chose to live a happier, shorter life with his family and friends rather than a longer life filled with cancer treatments. Zach left this world for a greater one on May 20th, 2013. But he didn't leave this world before touching millions of lives, including mine. Soulpancake recently released another video of Zach's family and the things they had to share about Zach one year after his death, and his family is just as inspiring as Zach, himself. One of the things that both broke my heart and filled it at the same time was something that Zach's mother said. She said, "If I had to do it all over again, I would give in in a moment."

We constantly yearn for a greater life. A life lined with successes and surrounded with people who care for you. In our search for this life, we forget to feel. We lose the ability to feel happy and to feel sad. We try so hard to maintain a status quo to avoid loss, but ironically, what we lose is our emotions. Zach Sobiech and his story taught me that, to be afraid to invest into relationships and to love other people only hurts ourselves. The greatest thing to do with this life we've been given is to feel, to love, to lose, and to gain. We cannot live in fear of loss. I believe that it is in the mechanism of the equilibrium of this world, that when we lose some things, we gain some things. 

And we'll go up, up, up

But I'll fly a little higher

We'll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer

Up here my dear

It won't be long now, it won't be long now.




"Clouds" by Zach Sobiech 







The link to the first video and the link to the second.