Bad Choices

 Choices.  We all face them.  You get information, you analyze said information, you decide, you live with the decision.  Sometimes those choice are easy, sometimes maybe not.  That’s life. 

Marty and I, like all of you, sometimes got to choose between hitting our thumb with a big ol hammer, or the other choice, hitting our thumb with a hammer, harder.  Living life, sometimes our choices simply suck and either way you turn your thumb is going to hurt.

As a not so young white male growing up in middle class America I admit, I was a bit shocked when I discovered that sometimes, reality hits, and we discover not all the choices we face are good choices.  I was surprised to learn that sometimes you are forced to pick things that you don’t particularly like. 

To top it off, in too many cases, not choosing is not a choice. We run into the rock and the hard place and must pick one of them to continue existing.  Sometimes you just have suck it up and act.  As one of my smart bosses once explained to me after I complained about some inane nonsense to her, “Grieve and get over it,”.

About 3 years into my journey with Marty, while in the hospital for a routine infection, Marty had a bad seizure and broke her right arm, her good strong right arm, the arm not affected by the stroke, the arm she used for everything from support when standing to eating and drinking, you know, the little thing.

We sat in the hospital with two choices, surgery to repair the shattered bone or do nothing and let the arm heel with some level of disability in that arm.  Both choices were clear, both choices sucked big time.

I, we, talked to each other, we talked to Marty’s doctor and the Orthopedic guy we hadn’t seen before the break.  We talked to our kids, we talked to friends, we did pros and cons, we thought, we mulled, we cogitated, there were no good choices, none.  It seemed wrong to make the intentional decision to NOT heal a broken wing.  It was frightening to think we would decide to have Marty undergo surgery and all the associated risks for an unknown result.

We sucked it up and made the decision to not do anything, it wasn’t the best choice, there wasn’t a best choice, it was pick one and live with it.

“Grieve and get over it.”

Did we make the correct choice?  I don’t know.   Marty’s life was not jeopardized by anesthesia and invasive surgery, she did not have to go through the pain of recovery, and she did not face possible deadly infections.  She did have to endure somewhat limited movement in her arm.  That was the choice; it’s the choice we made; it was a choice she lived with daily. 

We, all of us, are consistently confronted with choices, some good, some bad, some awful.  Sometimes, often, we are confronted with a Hobson's choice, we don’t really get a choice; we pick the only real option open to us.  It really is indicative of life, sometimes it all amounts to making the best of what is.

Marty did not get to choose the last 14 years of her life, but she did make a conscious choice to live the best life she, we could.  Life is not about easy choices or even good choices, but it is about choosing.