To make worthwhile

I’m breaking a rule and jumping ahead a few posts to cover today’s visit with the oncologist.

In short, though I’m 20 pounds lighter, my doctor was very pleased to reveal that I’m doing great.

No treatment this time around. He even expressed a bit of amazement that I’m still hanging in there some 14 years after my initial diagnosis without intervention.

I did have to visit the “Treatment Suite” (pictured above) to get a flu shot after my appointment.

Met a fine fellow from West Virginia who was undergoing chemotherapy. We had a heavy but nice conversation about life and death, and splitting logs.

I recalled my dad once invented and built a log-splitter that had a double-headed wedge so it could cut both to and fro, eliminating any wait for the blade to return to cutting position.

Industrious man, my father.

And though bittersweet to share this in a place where we spent so much time together in the end, (he passed away in 2004 from cancer), it was good to evoke his spirit and feel him present.

Now I don’t wax often about what happens beyond this life, but I like to think our spirit lives largely in the stories and memories shared after we walk our last steps.

And if I’m wrong? I suppose it’s no matter.

But it’s a mindset that makes the journey, the moments, all the more important to make worthwhile.

I’m fortunate either way.