Important things first- cancer creeps among my loved ones

So there's much to say that is time sensitive and can't be delayed. My friend Barry has been diagnosed with not one, not two, but three different species ofcancer. Starting with a melanoma that grew unnoticed for too long, he went in for tests. The tests revealed that he also had mesanthelioma (sp?) in his abdominal cavity- another aggressive cancer related to asbestos exposure. My friend and secretary, Janna Vanada, died of this back in 1979. Then, when they do exploratory surgery on Barry, they discover that he's got yet a third form of cancer which they can't quite pin down in his spleen. Prayers are welcome. Urged. But the reality I see looming out there is that we are all seeing more environmentally induced cancers. Grim subject but it's a reality. There's an unexplained growth in liver cancer, for example. Why? Who knows. But what our corporate and governmental brethren have to do with it needs further explanation. This past year I have been so conscious of the sly intrusion of disease. My friends, Lyle and Sharon, fought her leukemia through an entire marrow transplant process from January to September. God willing, they have won that battle. My sister, Susanna Maria, punched her way through breast cancer treatment in the same time frame= and I thin k wearing a pink bracelet is almost laughable as a way to respond to that hard truth. Susan, Thank God, is doing well. And hope is stronger every day for those who face these bitter diseases. But the other reality is that we are mortal. And the means of our mortality are always unknown until they appear. We are fools who do not consider our own end, because it is the one thing we can be assured we will have to address.

As for me. I look at all the chaos and uncertainty in the world and realize that it is no greater than what confronts the people I know and love as they look at today, and tomorrow....