Monday, November 17, 2008

Some words for us from Will

There is never a good time for cancer, and cancer is never a good time. Not usually. I guess that is what I want to tell you. After 20 years I have these memories, these stories, that happened around cancer, and actually, it's been quite a good time. It is not something I set out to do, it is one of those things that came and found me, pulled me out of how I looked at the world and drove me to the other side of the same cloud. It looked really different from there.

Cancer does not seem like some unfair outrage, some injustice being imposed upon me. It seems more like a lot of things; it seems like the most natural thing in the world. I look at a stream and see spawned fish lying on the bottom, their journey finished. I see every tree dropping leaves created during the summer. There is an enormous engine of life constantly cycling and regenerating, and I am in that continuum, I am part of it, my birth and my death tied together, inseparable. And for the most part, when I am out there, it just seems alright.

Maybe we call it a survival mechanism, finding a different presentation when Beowolf is at the door. Howl back, roll in a pile of massive leaves, sing on the bus, pull it out from deep inside and just throw it out there unedited. When you feel a falter or hesitation, then leap harder towards full headstrong. When it wavers, double the intensity.Whatever happens you are not going to just hand it over.

"Everything can be taken from a man but one last thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. " Victor Frankl

2 comments:

King Crimson said...

Thanks, Will, for being such a good friend.

ed said...

Will,
Your spirit lives in my heart.