Stop the ride for a moment. I'm feeling sick!

Pause with me for a moment and reminisce. We're all feeling a little weary of this daily fight with this invisible enemy called cancer. (I think it's supposed to be a capital 'C' but I'm not giving it any more attention than it has already getting from our family.)

This is a photo of our children back before we learned we had cancer. It was taken in Mexico and the whole family went with me to a photo shoot for a furniture product line. My very good friend Luiz makes this stuff and we borrowed Mexico's largeest TV mogul's vacation home and yard for the staging. Just as we were wrapping up, it started to rain and the kids just had a blast. We quickly threw everything back on the truck and ran back to normal life.

Yesterday we started a new set of treatments for Von that are more intense than his first two months and already he is having side effects from the drugs. (What is ironic is that society won't give a 3 year old a plastic bag for fear of harm, but passively accepts shooting them up with drugs that make sores in their mouths, causes their intestines to bleed and sprinkle in surprise vomit episodes.)

We attended a Christmas concert as a family last night. During the intermission, a lady approached us who found Von's bald head familiar. She introduced herself and in the process we learned she had a son with Leukemia just like Von. As she spoke, I realized she was speaking past tense. Not wanting to ask the obvious, but wanting to express concern for her son, I asked, "How old is he now?".

She said she didn't want to answer that so as not to discourage us. After pressing her a bit, she shared her son passed away suddenly at month 5 of treatment after everything was seemingly going well. (What did we expect, we did press her for it).

So we left the concert early, and drove home feeling very sober and serious about cancer and realizing it is something that has no certain outcome. Lisa was crying a bit and Von kept offering her kleenex and asking her why she was crying. Sweet little kid. Takes after me, actually. :-)

Back to Mexico. I looked at that photo this morning and realized how each day is so precious...even if you don't have cancer. How can I learn that lesson for good and enjoy today and the moment without quickly moving on to the next project. Am I the only one that wrestles with that?

At the time I took that photo, I was rushing off to the next project, the next obligation, the next opportunity. If I could go back, I would have set the camera in a dry place, and then sprawled out on the lounge chair and let the rain pour down and spread my arms out like the guy did in the movie Shawshank Redemption at the end.

My challenge to you today, cancer or not, is go do something small, special, memorable, or sweet for someone in your life and take a mental picture. I promise no matter how silly, dumb or trivial it feels, you will never look back with a feeling of regret.