Are some phrases ever overused?

You know, “Don’t Give Up . . . Don’t Ever Give Up.” [or the cinema version, “Never give up, never surrender!“]

I’ll quote Jimmy Valvano’s speech a little more (from here):

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all.”

During his speech the teleprompter stated that he had 30 seconds left, to which Valvano responded, “They got that screen up there flashing 30 seconds, like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I’m worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds.”  He died less than two months later.

In the past three days, the doctors thought my mother in-law had lost the use of her left side.  The doctors thought my mother in-law had lost the ability to swallow.  The doctors have said that, at 94, my mother in-law’s road to recovery from stroke is probably going to be too long, considering the increased chance of the next major stroke, to be worth the effort.

And yet, here she is, after her second time getting up to use the bedside commode with assistance, urinating about 600 mL, asking to get dressed for the day.

Sure, she’s tired.  The only nutrition besides water she’s had since Wednesday evening is 6 ounces of apple juice.

In a little while, I’ll see if she wants something more substantive – apple sauce, yogurt or ice cream.

If she wants to make herself better, I’ll assist her, as will the rest of the family, as we have done in the past four years and three previous “spells” in 2007, 2008, and April of this year.

My mother in-law is a quiet fighter full of fortitude, one of the last members of the Greatest Generation – her two children by birth, a son and a daughter, becoming a physicist and rocket engineer, respectively, and her “adopted” daughter, or charge, marrying and supporting a man who became a gastroenterologist.

Because of the doctors’ recommendation to let my mother in-law go quietly into the night, we held back our hope that she’d recover this time.

Of course, she could have a major stroke or myocardial infarction at any time.

Life is uncertain so keep making your way through life with certainty, no matter whether you’re a member of the Greatest Generation or the Un-Generation.

Time for this caretaker to help his mother in-law gain strength.

Family first, galaxy second.