LIFE AFTER CANCER…
“Life After Cancer” is in response to Jenn’s earlier “One Year Cancer Free!” First, a big thank you to my daughter for her care and for giving me the gift of my father. As if that weren’t enough, and to be alive, for my 70th birthday gift, I was given a cruise to Alaska!
A year and half ago, the day after I am admitted for tests in the hospital, I remember that the first thing I saw when I woke up was a t.v. channel that was showing spectacular views of worldwide landscapes. The Alaskan glaciers was the first landscape I saw, and I immediately thought to myself, “I’m not ready to die yet. I want to see all these places!”
Who would have thought that a year and half later, almost to the day on the anniversary of my cancer surgery, that I would be boarding a ship to view these very same marvels of nature!
If you want to read about my spiritual journey, please go to http://theforgottenpeace.wordpress.com. I blog about how I integrate qigong and psychotherapy in healing trauma. Qigong, an ancient Chinese healing art that comes to me from my father’s lineage, also holds a spiritual component, something that psychotherapy lacks. The two modalities that I utilize hold a powerful combination for healing.
To get back to subject at hand… The reader might be wondering why I’m writing about my Alaskan cruise on my father’s website. If it weren’t for our research, I never would have met most of the people in our cruise group. So, not only did they support us with my father’s artwork, they are now good friends.
First came Jetty and Miller. Jetty is on the Board of Trustees at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, and Miller is a renown architect and furniture designer. His designs are on tour with the LA County Museum, and his father’s designs are on permanent exhibit at the Modern Museum of Art in NYC.
Jetty and Miller introduce me to Sylvia and Ronald from Hawaii. Sylvia is a life long traveler, retired from United Airlines. She now takes her friends all over the world, and has friends in China that might be able to help us locate my father’s work. It is she who generously organized the cruise, our flight, and our transportation from the airport to the ship dock. Ronald is an accountant who is helping us look into establishing a a501C3.
Other members of our group are Jetty and Miller’s daughter, Tracy, and her 3 sons – Mason, Hayden and Preston. My roommate is LaVerne, Ron’s sister. And, the last two I do not know until we all arrive at the van – Thomas and Sara. Sara, after the cruise, is becoming another lifelong friend.
So, it is through my father that, albeit indirectly, I have a whole new set of friends who are opening a very different world to me. Thus, this blog is not only to thank those I’ve mentioned for their care and support of me and my family, but also to the many others that have helped us and continue to help us with our search.
I go back to Jeff Cody’s Paris presentation on the benefits of foreign cultural exchange – see Jenn’s blog on “Paris Journal Update (Week 1)“. The wonderful thing, when one embarks on a journey, one never knows what it will bring into one’s life. For me, it has not only given me a new set of friends, it is literally giving me the gift of doing something with others that I most love to do – travel!
Thank you to all my new friends!
