Gratitude for life and cancer in 2020

I never know how to start a blog post. But this one is easy. I am grateful for life - I came close to losing it a few months ago. .

I am grateful for cancer, because cancer taught me gratitude for life, and convinced me to be joyful in each new day as it comes one day at a time. It taught me to savor the cold north wind, the bright hope of spring, the joy of a summer breeze, and the pungent bright autumn when many things prepare for a long winter's nap. 

I am grateful for my friends. Life gets pretty lonely without a few friends who stick with me through thick and thin. And I am especially grateful for my family, my daughters and my spouse and my extended family in recovery. I am also grateful for little Hagar the shih tzu pooch who never leaves my side during my illness. He simply will not let me get depressed, always insisting that he is too a part of my family!

I am not grateful for the present leadership of our great country to the south of us. I am distraught by the warmongering of Mr Trump, as he starts the new Year with an assassination of Iran's top military leader, but I see no way that it can be stopped. I tend to be quite conservative, but I cannot condone an act of violence of the kind that starts world wars.

Enough politics about war. But I do have a little war poem I would like to share with you. Here it is:

Futility of War

Fire and blood

Signature of war and pain

Blood in the trenches

Fire in the sky

As warriors plummet to earth

Wings broken, doomed

I have submitted a cancer poem for publication. I will give you some details in a later post, after I edit the poem tomorrow and have it accepted in final form. If I am going to be a writer this year, then I must be less afraid of rejection and submit my work as often as an opportunity is presented.

On Wednesday the 8th of January I leave for Yellowknife for my monthly shot of Nivolumab to keep the Stage 4 kidney cancer at bay. Sandra and I will do a bit of shopping too for things that we cannot get here. We have an old 1986 Toyota Tercel in YK that starts in all weather. It is parked at 3916 Ragged Ass Road, a house that we own that is rented out to a super good renter. So every time we go to Yellowknife we have transportation.

Sandra has just given me a quotable quote attributed to Isaac Asimov: "I write for the same reason I breathe. Because if I didn't, I would die." That applies to me too. 

As I am sure you know, Isaac Asimov wrote the best science fiction in the last century. I am in awe of the breadth of his published writing, in many fiction genres as well as nonfiction works to make many aspects of science intelligible to the ordinary citizen. In keeping with his scifi prowess he has an asteroid and a crater on Mars named after him. I take Asimov as one of my writing heroes, because he was not afraid to write about absolutely anything that interested him.