SUNRISE - January 30, 2011

January 30, 2011 Sunrise 7:13 am

"Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what you’d do with it.
An' what did you do with it?
An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it?"

...Tim McGraw

I have had people say to me, after I (in detail) described the six month endurance run through Hell to keep Cancer at bay (you only get the Iron Man/Woman title after you make it through), that they wouldn't go through that.  They said they would just let the Devil take its course.  

Recently, my seventh grade daughter got "called up" to the big high school orchestra because of her skill with the cello (Principal Chair/Cello for the Intermediate School Orchestra), for a tour bus trip to Disneyland, to perform on stage and cut a CD this coming Friday. Is Dad taking a vacation day, driving ten hours down to Anaheim, buying a day pass to Disneyland, and stand in the front row at the concert with the movie camera?  Absolutely! 

This will be a Golden Moment I would not have had, if I had chosen the weaker course of action in 2008 and not gotten fitted for my custom claustrophobia mask, had two months of radiation and chemotherapy treatment.

Will this cherished Golden Moment extend beyond me?  Absolutely.  My gift to my daughter, from all of this, will be her being able to look up from her music stand, on stage in front of a huge crowd in Disneyland (she is still young enough to know this is way cooler than Carnegie Hall), smiling at her Dad beaming with pride, and actually SEE me in the front row of her momentous concert, rather than having to say "I wish Dad could have been here to see this.  He would have loved it."

rlw

* excerpt from a longer post at 'Another Day in Paradise'