The
following is the story of Cody's life as told in her own words
"I
used to lie awake at night thinking of the futures I would never achieve
-- graduate school, an established career, the archetypical house
with the white picket fence and matching porch swing, Saturday morning
cartoons with the kids and playing catch in the yard, even things
like wrinkles, cellulite and the way my hands will spot and satin
with age. I used to dwell on the "could-nots" and the "impossibles."
Now, however, I dream about how I can make the time I have remaining
as incredible and meaningful as is possible, and then more. I want
to fill my life with as many experiences as my body will allow and
to fill each day, each minute, with as much beauty as I can, because
I know this body and these minutes are not for forever.
Also,
I seem to feel as if every moment in my life now, not just the typical
emblematic incidences, is a milestone, a turning point, to be marked
as an epic event, as things have become so difficult and require so
much energy. I am now trying to make each moment as special and memorable
as I can, whatever it may be -- a new outfit for a first date, a sassy
haircut at a stylish salon so that I can walk into a college party
feeling like an edgy princess (Supercuts may be able to copy the do
but not the attitude), taking my poor college friends out to dinner,
or maybe even a triple latte instead of a single. Perhaps that sounds
silly, but I have talked with elders in the past about what they would
do differently if they had their lives to live over again. I have
heard, "walk around barefoot," "be impulsive, extravagant, and spendthrift,"
"stay up past my bedtime," and "eat two helpings of dessert ... first."
Well,
I guess you could say that I am approaching my old age now. Cystic
fibrosis is my old age. No, I will never see the skin on my hands
turn into wrinkled silk as they sleep in the hands of the one I love.
However, I already have the aching joints, and the crepe paper lungs,
the cough of an 80-year-old man laughing in my abdomen, snoring behind
my sternum. My rib cage is every bit accommodating to the elder in
house -- the body -- stretching and expanding, temporarily with each
breath, permanently with each year and my spine shakes hands with
gravity. So I am lucky, I guess, to be simultaneously young
and old. As a result, I won't look back on life and say, "If I had
it to do over again, I would." It is funny, but it is almost as if
I am living in the present and in the future and am thus conscious
of what I want now and what I will want later in life. A perfect blend.
No regrets. Facing one's mortality can be a very scary and painful
experience, but I also strongly believe that it can be beautiful,
too. It is just hard to see sometimes. The sicker I get, the more
difficult the little things become, but consequently, the more victories
I have -- making it up a flight of stairs or down the block or through
a slow dance with a close friend, without getting short of breath
-- triumph! Before long, taking a breath will be the sweetest victory
imaginable. But, all so beautiful. Perhaps I, we, should count ourselves
fortunate to be able to find the grace, the splendor, the potential
in the ordinary, the expected, the taken for granted. Life."
Cody's
family selected this beautiful essay, written by Cody herself, to
use as her obituary.
