I'm looking for something to believe in

People vary from one extreme to another in thinking about my health. Some of my friends are thinking in the back of their minds that I'm as good as gone; others assume I'm too tough to go out without a fight.

The thing is, I'm not fighting any more. I'm doing pretty much what I'm told, though I'm finding out what my limits are and I'm stretching them where I can. I've stretched too hard a couple of times, and I've paid for it.

My great aunt Ruth was a firm believer in will power, mind over matter if you will. When I was eight years old, the pediatrician determined that I was allergic to cats. At the time, we lived in a big old house and had three or four. Doc said we'd have to get rid of them.

I said "I'm not going to be allergic."

It worked pretty well until after Fred died. Fred was my cat in high school and college. He met his untimely end 'neath the wheels of a car my second year, it was right in the middle of finals week of the first semester, and I still had one major exam to finish; it was a paper for my Film as Literature class.

I was devastated. Fred was an ill-mannered and ill-tempered beast who once made an attempt to kill my father, but he was mine and I loved him. I couldn't concentrate, and I really had no idea how I was supposed to write that paper. The night before it was due I sat down and banged the thing out. In the end my essay on Terry Gilliam's Brazil kicked ass.

So you see, you're stronger than you think, every last one of you; in most cases, you do what you have to do. I'm not much of a believer--in anything if the truth were told--but I think that if there's something that needs to happen, it's going to happen, even if you have to find some crazy roundabout way to make it.

before - after