Blowin’ in the wind

Family and friends of our dear friend Scott gathered in Yosemite last week to scatter his ashes. The cremated remains had been placed in three bags for various members of the party to distribute as they wished. Scott’s lovely widow and a friend sat together at the top of a waterfall. Just as she emptied the contents of her bag over the edge of the falls, a breeze came up and blew the ashes back into their faces, eyes, noses, mouths, and hair.

I can’t help but think of how much Scott would have enjoyed this. In fact, he very well may have helped to engineer the moment. That the two women burst out laughing shows how well they loved and understood him. What a friend – even cracking ‘in your face’ jokes from beyond the grave.

co-lon-AH!-sco-py

There were some pretty cool things to celebrate when I turned 50 a few years ago: a marriage that works, two wonderful kids, an extraordinary circle of friends, and a whole bunch of lessons learned. Felt sort of like getting a second wind.

And speaking of wind,

A family’s journey through breast cancer

This is a lengthy post. It consists of 19 entries during the course of my wife’s diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer in 2004. It contains funny and frank stories, things that helped us get through a difficult time, and a look at how a life-threatening condition played out in our family.

April 27, 2004 (update #1)

To the many members of Susan’s Fan Club:

Here we are again, “standin’ in the need of prayer.” We learned this week that Susan has “early abnormal cells of ductal carcinoma in situ” (early stage breast cancer). A cluster of tiny spots showed up on a mammogram last summer, and a second cluster appeared on a follow-up mammogram in March.