The Power Of Intent

Doctors gave Carol and Lynn Kuykendall 2 years to live. That was 11 years ago. Today, Carol says, they feel more alive than ever.

- Carol Kuykendall Boulder, Colorado

ELEVEN YEARS AGO, MY DOCTOR GAVE me a death sentence. Incredibly, at almost the same time, my husband got similar news.

I’d recently turned 60. Lynn was 62. We’d thought we were just hitting our prime. The best decade of our lives. Wasn’t 60 was supposed to be the new 40, or something like that? Then both of us were diagnosed with advanced cancer—Lynn with a malignant brain tumor; me, six weeks later, with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.

I asked the oncologist to give it to me straight: How long did I have? Two years. That was her answer. I tried to process the shocking prediction: I could be dead in two years.

Well, I wasn’t. I didn’t die. But it was when Lynn and I thought we might be dying that we learned how to live with intent. To make each day matter. To embrace the moment.

What does it mean to live intentionally? Here is some of what we learned:

Be Present

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Chemo was draining, physically and spiritually. My first instinct was to retreat to the safety and privacy of home, where I could be at my weakest and most vulnerable. My hair was falling out. I had no energy. I couldn’t go to work or take a hike in the mountains around our Colorado home. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to church. What would I say when everyone asked how Lynn and I were doing? They wouldn’t want to hear that we were feeling discouraged, afraid and overwhelmed any more than I wanted to hear well-meaning suggestions about special diets or miracle supplements that would cure us.

One day our pastor stopped by and I admitted that I’d let my world grow small. “I feel safer at home, where I don’t have to answer any questions.”