To Know or Not

A beautiful 25-year-old girl I know in New Jersey was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year. She is now in remission, but she was told by her doctor that she will not be able to give birth. On the phone, she strained to say, "I almost wish I didn't know this. I’d rather have hope. I’d rather think that I could get pregnant still."

That's the age old question: If someone could tell you the date, time, and place of your death, would you want to know?

I don't really want to get into why I'm thinking about this, but I do want to highlight the debate. Would you rather know that something bad was coming? Even if you couldn't tell anyone you knew? The plus to having knowledge in advance is that you have time to gradually form a reaction. The minus, of course, is that you end up in a Chinese torture of harboring anxiety of the impending doom.

The last 3 days, I’ve found myself chanting Episcopalian private school teachings I’d thought I’d forgotten: “G-d will never give you more than you can handle in one day.”

I am currently in the process of forming 12 reactions to a troubling event that is soon to take place. I don’t know when it will come. I don’t know how it will come. But, let’s just say, I’m 100% sure it’s coming. And, I hate that I know ahead of time. However, I think it’s probably for the best that I do. I have to believe that fate had this knowledge in my cards.

Then again, I probably offset the balance by making a wish for love on every yellow light and with every penny I toss in a fountain (I know and, yes, feel free to gag) . You can’t have everything, and, truth be told, I’m happier with having what I recently got than keeping stability. This is all in code. I’ll try to work up the courage to explain more another time.