The Special Ingredients … What are they?

I was sitting with Cindi last month waiting for the men’s group to begin.  We were talking about the different events in our lives that have paved the way to become “colleagues” in this crazy world of cancer.  During the past seventeen months she’s had the opportunity to observe what love and support are all about between Bonnie and me.  I tried to explain to Cindi that I do not know what the special ingredients are to keep a couple together over the years, and then the pursuit of breast cancer recovery. I suppose witnessing broken hearts over the years have helped each of us galvanize what we have together.  Our honesty with each other is at the forefront of everything we do as a couple, as parents, as lovers, as friends.  I suppose the way we’ve prioritized things in our lives has certainly helped … there was a time in our lives, not that long ago, when yours truly would get in the car as the 5:PM whistle blew, head to the corner gas station, purchase two 22 ounce beers for the ride home and have one of them consumed in the first three hundred yards only to arrive home and sit on the back porch with a fridge full of beers and wait for the phone to ring to handle a problem at work that just could not be handled by the guy I worked for.  The money was phenomenal, the house was huge, the bank accounts were solid and the breeze coming off the Atlantic was so close you could smell the brine.  The past couple of years there I slept an average two hours a night while managing my blood pressure with numbers that would stagger you.  One afternoon, that cell phone of mine rang and I took the call out in the driveway to get out of earshot of the girls. I slept like a baby when that phone call came to its’ end.  It was one of those discussions with your boss that just had to be made.  Of course, as suspected, the handwriting was on the wall when I arrived to work the next day.  He heard what I had to say and was then handed my resignation letter.  This was three years ago, nearly to the day and something remarkable came out of that resignation.  Our family moved to the west coast, Bonnie’s first mammogram identified an anomaly and, as they say … the rest is history.  I can’t say for sure if the medical group she visited annually for her mammograms would have discovered the breast cancer tumors or not … what I can say is that the tumors have been discovered, removed, and here we are writing and reading about it.  It’s the decisions we make each and every day that help shape the world we live in and living together in harmony is one way of going about our lives.  I know for certain there are far too many of us out there without the relationship status Bonnie and I happen to share.  I don’t know the reasons you read this blog and as the subtitle states: “WORDS CAN HELP. HERE ARE MINE. WHAT ARE YOURS?”

Is it really that easy?

Thanks for listening.

Kindest,

Paul

 

Mending Under the Moon

SAVE THE DATE

4:PM, Friday July 13th through 3:PM, Sunday, July 15th

This retreat is designed to:

• Access more tools to empower you to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual challenges of cancer treatment and recovery
• Experience nurturing support and renewal with others dealing with similar challenges

Activities will include lectures and discussion groups, workshops, art therapy, gentle movement therapy, massage and delicious, healthy meals.  The goal of this retreat is for you to have support from others facing the same journey and to help you gain strength.

SUPPORTED IN PART BY

The Safeway Foundation

LOCATION

Westerbeke Ranch Conference Center, 2300 Grove Street, Sonoma, CA  95476

COST

$300 (includes all meals and lodging)  Scholarships available on a limited basis.

CONTACT

Pre-registreation is required.  For more information, or to reserve your space, call (707) 523-7312.

ALL ARE WELCOME

You do not need to be a part of Sutter to attend.

♥ ♥ ♥

Hope those of you even thinking about attending something like this can make it … Bonnie will be there which gives me a weekend with the girls and no “to-do” lists!!

As always – a special thanks to Cindi.

Cheers,

Paul

 

The Treasures That Prevail

I sit here this morning listening to the lyrics of a song I have listened to perhaps more than a thousand times.  My music tastes have not changed in the past forty or so years.  Groups like Led Zeppelin (playing now), Aerosmith, The Who, The Rolling Stones (of course), Bruce (last name not required), Tom Waits and Lynyrd Skynyrd have filled my head with their verses, their poetry, their drum solos with countless CD’s, cassettes, 8-tracks, and LP’s over the years, and they are now all sitting inside this tiny little IPOD.  Today’s technology anchors me to my past and believe me, although I know there’s a bright future out there for me, my wife and our two children, the music of my past will come along for the ride.  The reason I mention music in today’s post reflects on a revolving conversation we’ve been having at our Men’s Group the past couple of months and it involves whatever you believe regarding “the man upstairs” and our own spirituality.  I was raised in a Catholic household and attended Sunday mass regularly and as I got older I was allowed to take my younger brother to Saturday evening mass freeing up our collective Sunday to spend it wrestling outside, playing football with the kids in the neighborhood or doing whatever young adolescent boys do.  I cannot tell you the last time I was inside a church, and it certainly was not for to attend mass.  My guess is probably a wedding or a funeral.  Funny how those two nouns are so closely related.  Anyway, my spirituality comes from within, from trusting what I believe to be true and not really thinking, or concerning myself with any deity.  When I listen to Springsteen I am taken back to the days of my youth where the three of us would run around town in my buddies beat-up 1970 Maverick and that’s the spirit that lives inside me today.  I love thinking about what those days were like – unfocused, unrestrained, and free to do pretty much whatever we deemed appropriate.  The tagline for this blog is “Where Judgment is Left at the Curb” and I think it’s very important to recognize this as you read this and future blog posts.  The first Thursday of every month is now on a few schedules here in Sonoma County where we sit, we listen, we purge, vent, question, lean on each other and quickly realize how fast ninety minutes disappears.  In my readings recently I came across the thoughts of “Linda” ^[1] who states “In four difficult years following the diagnosis, my heart embraced a life lesson that Adrienne Rich shared in her poetry: “I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.”  The treasures that prevail … this too is one subject we will undoubtedly discuss as our wives, girlfriends, and partners continue onward.  The treasures that prevail have been uncovered by my wife and I.  The one treasure recognized immediately after our Stage 2 diagnosis was my wife’s inner strength.  In our Men’s Group; we know there will be chaos, we know there will be surprises, both internal and external, there will be choices, there will be decisions made, both favorable and regrettable, and let’s be real – there will be loss.  All I want to offer is a place to come and relax in an environment where judgment is left at the curb where we look for the treasures which may prevail …

Kindest,

Paul

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[1]Speak the Language of Healing | Living with Breast Cancer without Going to War