Hi Robby & Melissa hope you both have a lovely weekend mrs sw gets migraines too shes already fast asleep i think shes getting another cold

Spk soon Robby

I hope mrs sw avoids that possible upcoming cold. Melissa and I just got over ours from earlier in the week. I hope for a lovely weekend for you and yours too, my good friend. Thanks for your kindness Wolfie. :)

I'm going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight, Rob. Any statues I should visit for you & Melissa?

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_1970.44.jpg

:) Love endures beyond flesh and blood.

Oh, my. A High Kink exhibit?

(((Verte)))

Thank you. :hug:

Yes, I'm writing, and yes, it will speak to what you have noted in your post above. I'm in earnest to have such a book published while I still have time. I do believe I have a message enough to offer for publication which shall well detail my decades of experiences and practiced mindfulness which has brought me to real success with my challenges. This incurable cancer challenge has however taken me to a whole other level. Truth be told, I'm a bit in the dark just yet with facing a challenge marked with the prognosis of incurable cancer. :hug:

Nonetheless, I'm as brave as I've ever been, open-minded, and resources aplenty, and good friends and select family members, and so I have every intention of doing right and being confident of my choices right up to my last day of life. There are no real alternatives for the kind of man I am. Caving in and giving up is something I just don't do well, and I'm not about to learn how now, lol. Death was always coming and I've cheated it enough times already, you know?

For me, my prognosis towards death is to early for my liking. Physically painful as well I've been told. Nonetheless, pain management has come along way, and I'm not too concerned I suppose. Statistics and probabilities and assumptions will not have the last word on me. There are ALWAYS opportunities to make lemonade when all around you are lemons. In fact, the more lemons, the easier the task, is the way I have always seen my life.

As for being in a peaceful place, a place of calm and reconciliation of my life relative to my challenges -- yes, I have well accomplished this peacefulness and happiness, and I can tell you this helps me to no end with what is now before both myself and my good and beautiful Melissa.

I'll speak to all this more deeply in the thread following the slated closing of "Authenticity"

:thanks

Yeah!

Anything celebrating the raw awesomeness of sentient awareness of being alive. Having said that, I'm clueless of what the Met has on display. Truth be told my friend, the last time I was at a museum I was a kid and totally enraptured by the dinosaurs on display in what is now the Museum of Civilization here in Ottawa.

Melissa requests you have a look at "Portrait of Madame X" by John Singer Sargent.

:thanks

There's a budget grocery between home and work that keeps a rack in the produce section that most people never notice. Back in the corner, kind of out of the way. It's the ugly, damaged, over-ripe, about to go bad rack. When I first noticed, it was because of the oranges. I'm used to natural oranges, not the shiny, happy, orange oranges that are usual. These are blotchy, ugly and completely off-putting. They are also the perfect juicing orange. So I grabbed a dozen. For $0.88. Yep, 88 cents a dozen and they are perfect juicing oranges.

I hit that rack regularly now. It's perfectly good produce at ridiculous prices. The only thing you have to do is use whatever you get there NOW.

I think of you guys and this thread every time I'm there. I'm reminded that what I have now, and what I do now is very important and I better do the meaningful NOW.

Awesomely powerful message you got going there, Trach. All of it, my friend. Beautiful. Like your saying, in the NOW is always worth the effort no matter the "ugly" circumstances which may dog us from time to time. I can easily see your smile of satisfaction as you juice those dozen oranges!!

Rob, you are showing me the value of being in the Now. You're facing your mortality. I am humbled by your positive attitude. I'm just juicing oranges.

I don't want to post because I don't want to get it closer to 500. I just want to say I think all this sucks. I have been quiet because I don't like to post if I can't add something positive. I've tried and tried and I've got nothing. I know life isn't fair but does it need to be so unfair? I guess I am just not sure what my beliefs about anything are anymore. Then I get mad at myself because you and your wife are so enlightened and here I am someone who doesn't even know you throwing a temper tantrum over it. :react

Robby, I love that you are writing about your life's experiences and it would be fantastic if you could get published. I am learning gratitude and patience from reading your posts and I can only imagine how wonderful it would be for you to publish a book.

I'm with you, Della. It's hard for me to post here too because I am still throwing an inner tantrum over it. It took me six years to get over my grandmother's death caused by lymphoma. There should already be a cure for cancer :( It is so unfair.

Here you go, Melissa -- I didn't see her tonight, but I often go there & I often see her. I've gotten very fond of Sargent. He loved women. Did you know that in this portrait, he showed her originally w/the strap of her gown slipping off her shoulder? It all but ruined Sargent's reputation in France -- a scandal. French prudes?

http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImage...large/DT91.jpg

Oh Della and Jennie-
What significant voices you have on this thread! Don't doubt for a minute your importance to me, ( I'll let Robby speak for himself as he's known you even longer...)

I, the late-comer, felt very intimidated writing here, figuring it was for the deeper, more intellectual reader. But as the days went on, I felt so warmly received by you all that I felt I could share anything. And I did. Thank you for being two of those people that popped up and said Hi when Rob was in the hospital and I was alone at home.

Yes, cancer sucks. And yes, it's not fair. And again, yes, I am anxious about the future, but we have had to create a new normalcy to our lives so things don't fall apart completely. It's sort of like when you have a baby and your friends can't imagine how you manage. Well, for one thing, it's not like you get a 6 month old right off the bat. You grow and learn while the baby grows and learns, too. And secondly, what choice do you have? There is no giving up and walking away. Does that make any sense?

Living with cancer and its full bag of tricks, you learn that you can still have the life you had, but it's enhanced by knowledge that you need to make it count. I feel so lucky in a way that we know Rob's diagnosis and can make plans reasonably for my future. At the oncologist at the first visit when she dealt us the 6 month blow and told us there was no cure, The first thing Rob did was look at me and say,
"I'm so sorry" because he knew I was going to be devastated without him. And I will be. Getting angry at this point is inviting bad feelings I don't want to live with. Sadness I am a little freer with but I still keep it in check.

I guess what I'm jabbering about is really that this kind of enlightenment I could have done without, you know? I appreciate your feelings of unfairness. I really do. And, Jennie, I'm so sorry about your Grandmother.
No one deserves this. Especially not Robby. He's paid his dues from the age of 11 months. We could use a break here, sir! Are you listening?

I'm feeling a little sad about this thread ending, too. Robby assures me that it will go on in some form or another, and I believe him. I guess I just don't handle change very well. (I used to feel this way at the end of every school year, too lol)

I hope you two have had good nights tonight. We lay around and watched Selma. Good movie. A bit heavy and having watched American Sniper last night, I am so terribly aware of my attraction to the widows in both movies.

Courage, glad you had a nice museum trip. Thanks for sending the pic. Interesting story behind it, huh?

Good night, all❤️

(((Della))) (((SoberJennie)))

I know. I'm sorry for your hurts. It is beyond reasonable when illness, or accident, or misfortune takes a life. Even more so for those we have a deep measure of personal love and relationship with on so many levels. I have no good practical answer for this kind of pain in life. I'm sorry. I do know though that pain can be healed. I also know such healing in itself hurts too. A different kind of hurt though...

Please understand I do have some serious angst concerning my cancer. The reality is not lost on me. I too have my times of doubt and anger, and regret, as is to be expected of course. How could I not care about the apparent unfairness of it all?

Here's the thing though for me: my personal pains, regrets, fears, doubts and whatever are not as important as my living my remaining life to my fullest joy and happiness with what time I have. Wasting any of this to nourish my sorrow and angst would only serve to take away even more from me, and from those who love me. So, I set my compass for a better journey, a journey not of loss, but one of celebration for a life well examined and well lived. I still have real purpose, and this has always been my proof against whatever challenges have ever come my way.

:hug:

Amen.

Robot and Raccoon...
Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. And even if 500 posts hit. You aren't getting rid of us that easily. We all care way too much!
Puffy

Thanks to all for a another wonderful exchange of nearly 500 responses. This thread is closed due to size but Robby will be starting the next chapter shortly....

Here is the link to the new thread

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...thread-ii.html