Birthdays

Dear Friend,

Let’s start at the end. Scan results came back this week. They were good. The doctor acknowledged that “No Evidence of Disease” is sort of the mythological white whale of glioblastoma, and we will almost certainly never have a completely clear scan. But the two areas of primary concern both seemed to be a little smaller this time as compared to previous scans. You will note all the hedging in that sentence, and there is a lot of it. The reading of these scans is subjective. Always is.

But everything about this is good news. Make no mistake about that.

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A week ago, a number of friends gathered to celebrate my birthday, my fifty-ninth. Kathryn put together a lovely event, and I so deeply appreciate her hard work and effortless execution.

I have two birthday wishes for you, dear friend:

That you would you dare to celebrate every birthday with vigor. In spite of the pains and aches and arthritis and indignities that inevitably come with aging. In spite of the losses seem to fall like rain, so relentlessly, turning your dirt path to mud, and making walking feel like drudgery. In spite of all of that, my wish is that you might cherish the gift, the grace of today, and when today happens to be your birthday, you will accept it with particular enthusiasm.

And…

That at some point you get your wish to see so many of the people who mean so much to you come together. To introduce your friend Michael, who mentored you in your very first job in Boston, to Carolyn, a new friend who showed up at your little coffee shop at the same time you did and was willing to risk a conversation about life, the universe and everything - and who stuck so beautifully that you now meet there every week. To see your nephew, who drove five hundred miles that very day to be there deep in conversation with one of your third-third church friends who you never, ever, ever imagined you would meet, much less consider one of your most intimate treasures. To watch as your people came together without even needing an introduction. New friendships being created that were quietly and literally decades in the making. Without your guidance. Without your intervention.

A friend talks about the miracle of any two of us being in the same place at the same point in time. When you consider the vastness of both space and time, how could it be anything other than a miracle? And I don’t use the term flippantly.

It is my sincere wish that you get to witness this miracle, too. So few people, I think, get that privilege, and I hope you are able to recognize that I recognize the privilege. There is only one word that even comes close to describing the gift I was offered, and the gift I want so desperately for you: Grace.

What else could it be?

Oremus,

C