Meet Buster: My Big, Fat Tumor

Happy New Year.  Out with the old.  In with the new…

I was catching up with old friends tonight and, of course, “What did you do on New Year’s Eve?” inevitably, predictably came up.  Reflecting, the tone this NYE seemed less decadent than in years past.  In New York’s Times Square, the prior lighted ball was retired in favor of a much lower energy “green” ball.  It was toned down.  Here in Austin, a lot of people were sick- myself included.  So, naturally, many people here toned it down.  People across the nation that I have talked to admitted, unabashedly, to being asleep when Father Time gave up the ghost.  It seems to me that there was a general ho-humness around this particular calendar roll.  Did you have a similar experience?

2009 took a toll on us, I think.  Prior years played out like one big, elongated NYE bash where revelers partied like there would be no tomorrow.  Few worried what the tab had run up to because it wasn’t real money- it was credit.  Then the hangover came.  2009.  Like every dutiful hangover, it reminded us why we can’t act that way, do those things, be “that guy,” etc.  We laid around at the end of 2009 re-evaluating priorities, making resolutions and vowing to change behaviors.  Maybe the toned down start of 2010 wasn’t just one night, but an indication of the flow of the coming decade.  And I say hooray.

In these pages we’ve talked a lot about re-evaluating priorities.  It’s times like these that we remember to live.  And love.  We learn that every day can be a fresh start.  Even every moment or as often as you can change a thought process or behavior for the better.  While these new beginnings might not always be the start of something everlasting- they are a better way to spend that day or that moment.  The effort and the hope is honorable.  The strength to live well is teachable.  The tenacity and perseverance is contagious.

Morgan flies to Houston on Monday to meet with the specialists at MD ANDERSON www.mdanderson.org.  His amazing wife, Kasha, will be with him as well as Melissa and myself.  Morgan’s level of effort and strength that this journey displays is awesome.  Nothing about making this trip is easy.  It’s a lot of travel.  But not the kind Morgan is famous for.  It’s an act of bravery and tenacity, and I admire it greatly.  2010 promises the hope of a new year, new treatment, new beginnings.

Please think of us this week as we search for answers as difficult as the questions themselves. 

-Mark