David McElroy

I feel out of place in this house.

At 3 a.m., it’s almost silent. It’s almost completely dark. Because it’s not my house, I notice every little sound and every faint glowing light on electronic devices. But the only sound I really notice is the quiet, rhythmic breathing of my sleeping friend in the next room.

I haven’t slept much this week, because I’ve been sitting up at night with a friend who had major surgery last week for life-threatening cancer.

I’m not much of a nurse, but that’s not why I’m here. She just needs someone to help her get to a bathroom every hour or two. She has drain lines to clean and empty. Incisions to clean and bind. Medications to take. Pain to endure.

I’m just here to help her stand and then to lie back down. To move a bandaged leg that can’t move much on its own. To make sure she doesn’t fall.

As she sleeps in unpredictable intervals, I have a lot of time to think. Since I’ve known this friend since we were both children, you would think I would be worrying about the stage 4 cancer that threatens her life. But that’s not where my thoughts are tonight.

Instead, I’m thinking about my own life.

Maybe that means I’m selfish. Or maybe it just means I’m human. Or maybe it’s God’s way of putting me into an uncomfortable place of asking myself questions that scare me.

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It was a year ago today when cancer took Lucy away from me. I still miss her every day.

It’s hard for me to believe it’s been a full year. If you’ve known me for long, though, you know how much all of my furry friends mean to me — and how much this special dog meant.

In this three-minute video, I reflect on what this dear girl meant to me.

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I’m not trying to change your mind anymore — about anything.

There was a time when I was naive enough — and arrogant enough — to believe I was smart enough to convince anybody that I was right about anything. I thought I could lay out airtight arguments that any reasonable person would agree with.

I thought I could change anybody’s mind. And I thought it was important to “convert” others to whatever I believed. I was a fire-and-brimstone preacher evangelizing for my holy cause.

I was wrong about all of that.

My goals are simpler today. All I really want is to help you feel something.

I want you to feel something that is real and true.

I want to help you feel something human — and I want it to be something that you know in your own heart is the truth. What you do with that is up to you. Even if I’m right about the things I believe — and I do believe I’m right, of course — it’s not really my business what you decide to believe.

I want to help you get in touch with what it means to be alive — not as a consumer or a worker or a voter or a cog in a machine.

I want you to feel what it means to be a fully conscious human being.

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