Friday, August 12, 2011

Fighting gloomy times – economy in chaos and an old friend stricken with leukemia

Let’s give credit, where credit is due. Let’s see what the Tea Party will do for you!

I had to drive to Sacramento yesterday to take my wife to the airport. When I drove back home today, I left the radio off.

I took that opportunity to reflect on the last couple of weeks. Our country has been battered by dueling ideologies, and we’ve witnessed how a minority can control the majority.

So, it’s no wonder that Surveys show sharp rise in pessimism as lawmakers grapple with debt, economy .

On the personal side, I just found out yesterday that one of my oldest and dearest friends, Tom Holloway, has leukemia. He’s also my wife’s brother. I met Tom in my freshman year at Azusa College in 1964. I hardly knew he had a sister in those days. It wasn’t until years later, and after I got out of the Army, that the love bug bit Shirley and I. Tom lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Right now, he’s in a VA hospital in Washington D.C. getting chemo treatments 24 hours after he was diagnosed. His little sister, and my wife, Shirley has gone to be at his side.

Tom has other challenging physical ailments that complicate things. He’s 61 years-old, and nine months older than I am. Much to young for this to happen. Amid all the gloom and doom out there in the media, there was one ray of light…actually it was like a beacon to me.. researchers have found a way to cure leukemia by taking a person’s white blood cells and mixing them with a safe form of the HIV virus and infusing them back into the person! That was announced yesterday.

I realize that it’ll take a while to get on the market and to be available to someone like Tom. I like to think he will fight this disease off with what methods are currently available. Who knows? Maybe in several years he will get that magic infusion in the nick of time. Meanwhile my heart is heavy, but I intend to stay positive about Tom’s new battle.

Life is too short. I’m choosing not to let this lousy economy get me down. I’m also choosing to be positive about how things will turn out for Tom. It only makes sense. The alternative is to be bummed out, and to start thinking about Tom in the past tense. He deserves more than that from his old friend.

There’s not a thing I can do about the economy, or Tom’s situation. Once, that might have overwhelmed me. Now, I take life day-by-day with no expectations of a tomorrow. I’m learning how to make every hour count. I’m also making sure that all my friends and family know that I love them.

As It Stands, onward and upward…

1 comment:

Tom Holloway said...

Just read your post and wanted to thank you for both, your kind thoughts and the use of your spouse. She is still littler than me but is so much like our mom that when she told me to do something I did it and didn't argue.
Love you my friend.

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