The doctor said, "I am sorry, but it seems very likely that we are looking at prostate cancer...and it is growing quickly. Not definite of course until we do a biopsy. Rushed it. You are scheduled for 9/5."

My reaction to the news surprised me, and maybe I was in denial, but it was calming. I spent the rest of the day after work in a very peaceful meditation and review of my life. Maybe there was some melancholia, the regrets for harm done and the could-have-beens, like MaryEllen Brown. Yet maybe not. It was more a beautiful dirge, like the Adagio in G Minor: a grand and lovely sorrow celebrating having lived. All the disappointments, pain, triumphs, successes, mistakes, worries, loses, an odyssey of God's, the Navigator.

I share this possibly morbid post with you at OPP because some of you are like family to me, and, lol, you know how families can be: not a choice but a bond nonetheless, no matter how annoying or worse it can be.

Who knows what will happen? The end might be still years away. (Or never? Fingers-crossed!) It is the contemplation of death I give to you as a gift: it is very freeing. I am ready. There is not going to be any chemo. There is not going to be any stint in a hospital or even hospice. There is not going to be any search for a miracle cure. I give myself fully to the care of God.

(I knew I should never have gone to a doctor, I was just fine until I did.)