Reflections Seventeen Years Later

My youngest had a malignant brain tumor diagnosed when he was almost 6 years old and today he turns twenty three years old.  The things that I have learned from this, all of which I would return many times over to not have lived through it, are too numerous to count.  The first thing is how grateful I am to have him still with us.  Children pay a high price for cure from cancer and he has more than his fair share of challenges that are directly related to his diagnosis and treatment.  So it is actually a rosy picture.  There is beauty and grace,but there are thorns and aphids as well.  As I reflect on this occasion, my youngest son's birthday seventeen years after he became a cancer survivor I am forever grateful for the years that we have had together, I am proud of the man he has become, and yet I still feel great sadness at the loss.  The good news is that he is really an Eagle Scout in that he is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, mostly friendly,mostly courteous, always kind, obedient, strangely cheerful, very thrifty, brave, largely clean, and completely irreverent.  No one is perfect.  But life is pretty darn good almost two decades later.   So it is time to savor the moments and go about celebrating the day!