As I reflect on another year gone by and my second year working with Blood Cancer Uncensored, I want to draw some conclusions that for me, are personal, but may also be something to which you can relate.

First of all, very little in our control. I can only control so much in my life. I cannot control gasoline prices, politics, some of the things that occur in my day job to a certain extent, but I can learn to accept things like that. I cannot control the folks in my own household. I have to let them be themselves. I can only control certain aspects of my health by watching what I eat and exercising within my personal limits and avoiding accidents. I am sentimental, remembering that about a year ago (December 7th) my beloved dog Nino was attacked while on his walk with his Daddy and we could have lost him…

Second of all, I am getting older. The world is beginning to seem a little strange to me. People announcing the death of a loved one on Facebook is an effective way to broadcast it, but it will always seem a little impersonal to me. Talking to people on the phone, hearing their voice (if we cannot meet face to face) is my preference at this time of my life. My eyes don’t work as well as they used to and driving at night has become a challenge, so I try my best to work around this limitation.

Thirdly, in order to remain sane, I am still more convinced that without my faith in God I would have lost my mind a long time ago. My love for Jesus remains strong and His word and truth keeps me on the right path. He says, “there is nothing new under the sun” and indeed, even though things are often advertised as new and improved and repackaged in glamor and glitz, the concept of ‘nothing new’ has been around for, well ….. forever.

I am rowing my kayak in sometimes turbulent water as efficiently as I can. So when the water is calm like the photo shared here from my 2021 Adirondack trip, I can rest and get ready for when I really need to exercise my muscles in the river of life. Sometimes I get so tired I think I will have to succumb to the water around me. I do not know exactly what is ahead, but I do know that I refuse to remain in stagnant waters or, worse yet, to travel backwards into the past. I want to know what is around the corner, even if it is a raging rapid. It’s what lies beyond that huge adversity is what I have to look forward to.

So I write this to invoke some wisdom that my good friend Phil Webb shared with me recently. He said:

“Anticipation and anxiety go hand in hand. Life is like being in a boat on a river, sometimes you have to row, other times you have to relax and let the current carry you. Right now you need to do the latter. Rest you arms and make sure the oars are in good order, you’ll have a lot of rowing to do soon. ” ~Philip Webb

I have been thinking that life is a lot like a game of 8 ball. If you are not on your game, and you pocket the 8 ball before you should, you lose the entire game. No matter how well you were doing before that, it can be over in one little mistake. One other thing about pool. It matters where you hit the ball. If you miss the intended section of the desired target, the ball will not roll as planned. Indeed, it sometimes goes in the complete opposite direction! The difference with life is that life takes you in sometimes unexpected directions at times and ideally you have more than one chance at things. In fact, it usually does not come down to two balls, one being the eight ball. Also, if not for a little “mistake” in how you hit the ball, you might not have seen that rainbow on the horizon.

With the New Year, I know a lot of us re-assess our lives and make changes as appropriate. Sometimes we are anxious as the future can be very uncertain. I think about all of you and I realize that we all have been through something like this. I am anticipating some very good things (and some scary) from my life changes. I am very grateful for knowing you and sharing our blood cancer journey, even though sometimes the road is very rocky and unclear. I am thankful for such a wonderful group of people who understand the battle.

Happy Holidays and a blessed New Year to you all. I am looking forward to many more adventures with you in the coming New Year.