Friday, June 16, 2006

Cancer and Odds and Ends

The other day I heard the news that a good friend of mine has breast cancer. I have been fairly lucky and have not had to face a death of a loved one (other than grandparents), nor have I had any friends diagnosed with cancer. I have a philosophy, though flawed, that you get what you can handle. I've always figured I can't handle much, so therefore I'm lucky. This summer my friend will be going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I will be able to help in a small (but important) way and others will be helping too. Those of us that are helping all have our strengths and my friend is thoughtful in her assignments.

When she told me about what she is going to going through, she said "I know you don't do gross. So, your assignment is to take [the kid] and show him how to ride his bike and how to pump on the swings." I have a cool job.
I'm glad she was able to think of things we could all do. She is in the health field and is thinking more clearly than I ever could... Rational and organized.
I won't be writing for the next couple of weeks. We're going to take some time for the family without computers, phones, or television. I do have a book that I just started to read, "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer. It's about the Mormon faith, John Smith and how the Mormon religion began. So far, it's very disturbing. Check it out if this sounds interesting to you.
Here is the Mormon response. Here's the Amazon link.
Here it is, June 16th and it's raining and cool. Have a great next couple of weeks!
~ch

2 comments:

Corvallist said...

That is an amazing book. I liked Krakauer's book Into Thin Air, so I picked up the Banner of Heaven one. Interesting stuff.

He's a nice guy, too... got to meet him when he came back to Corvallis for a reading when the book came out.

Vita said...

Hey! I miss you. Hope you are having a great time. You will be back when you see this.