Friday, I went to the doctor's office to have six precancerous lesions frozen off my face. Sunday night, I "slept" at the ER with a high temperature and horrible pain from my stomach to my kidneys. I am 45 years old. Old enough, I suppose, to feel death watching me, and wonder if I have lived such a bad life that I deserve to die.

I have never killed anyone. I have never been so drunk I passed out, although I do enjoy a good party, especially if there is singing involved. I have been know to go skinny dipping, but seldom at parties, and never while singing and drinking. In short, I would be hard pressed to say I deserved to die. I know I am not anything special. I understand that one day I will die, as we all do, but still I feel ashamed when I am sick.

I do not believe God punishes us with illness, but I do believe we need forgiveness. I believe we need to forgive ourselves for not being better fortune tellers. It is not rational to expect a five year old to know that today's sunburn will turn into sun lesions in, oh, forty years or so. It is not fair to expect that routine medical care will protect someone from a nasty bout of the stomach flu. Things change. No one lives forever. We need to live and love and laugh and let go. Sometimes, the best we can do it to keep breathing, and one day, we all fail at that too, and somehow, that is okay.