I’m now working full-time from home, and there is no shortage of visitors. Co-workers bearing banana shakes, mango smoothies, dark chocolate. This text from a friend: “Hiya – can I drop off a little something sweet to yous this early afternoon?” All in an effort to entice Hubby to eat.
We got home from SunRiver to find a moose on our front porch. Perhaps I should explain. A friend, visiting her old stomping grounds, wrote: “Trying to figure out how to bring some Alaska to you and hubby. Any requests?”
Hubby asked for Baked Alaska, and I requested a live baby moose. We’re both easy to please. Apparently something got lost in the translation. Because we found this hand-crafted, moose-shaped, metal garden ornament planted in a rather large and beautiful fall bouquet. On our front porch. (If I can’t have a live moose, this is definitely the next best thing.)
When we were growing up together as a married couple, Hubby’s job programming large IBM computers required he work in cities. He chose to commute a little so we could bring up our kids in smaller towns and semi-rural areas. From time to time we’ve wondered out loud what we did wrong, because our children love big cities and crazy traffic and a faster pace of life. A friend, upon hearing we’d raised them in small towns, said, “Well, that’s what you did wrong.”
I’ll say this about having city kids, though. It’s easy to keep them amused when they come to visit. We simply introduce them to the local wildlife.
You’d never guess the photo shoot took place on a sidewalk. On a busy side street. Sis-in-law Cheryl wrote, “You guys even make living on the street look like fun.”
We didn’t make it to Alaska to celebrate Hubby’s birthday and our anniversary. Hubby wasn’t up to it. Instead, we rented a cabin at SunRiver resort with wood-lined ceilings and nothing but trees out the front wall of windows.
I brought homework with me this birthdayversary weekend. The hospice social worker handed me a booklet on death and dying. “This would be good to read,” she’d said. Here’s what it says about sleeping:
Interestingly, the normal sleeping pattern during the dying process is virtually identical to the normal sleeping pattern of newborns: off and on around the clock.
This describes Hubby’s sleeping pattern. To a tee. But he isn’t anywhere near the place described in the booklet.
Hubby’s mom and sibs are in central Oregon for a week. We’ve never done a *siblings and mom-in-law* vacation together. I’m exhausted from laughing so much. Great medicine for Hubby.
We’re in the small resort town of SunRiver. Riding bikes. Exploring the local mountain villages and lakes. Couples taking turns cooking. Floating a lazy river.
Physical activity is one of our cancer team members. And although I enjoyed the exercise – nine miles round trip, 1100′ elevation gain – and although the scenery is incredibly beautiful, the trail never too far from the sound of Fall Creek tumbling down the mountain, still …
… still, there was something missing.
David Letterman once interviewed Warren Zevon, a composer and performer, who was dying of lung cancer. Letterman asked: “From your perspective now, do you know something about life and death that maybe I don’t know?”
To which Zevon replied:
I know how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.
You want to know one of my favorite things about our annual Soaring Spirits Cancer Survivor and Family Camp held high in the Cascade Mountains? This. These people.
St. Charles Cancer Center co-workers
We are all about helping create community to reassure cancer survivors and their caregivers that they are not alone on this journey. How is it that I get to work with some of the best people on the planet?
Tenacity. A favorite word of mine. Because I like the way it rolls off the tongue. Because I like what it means. Persistent. Determined. As in, determined to live well despite not-so-great circumstances.
This describes Hubby with cancer. One tough guy. Today we walked a 3.2-mile loop of the Deschutes River trail. A new distance record for him since completion of chemo and radiation.
Copyright © 2025 Marlys Johnson
