Hello!

  So, this eve a little less morbid.

I was once, but am no longer a believer.

But through my entire adult life, John Donne's Meditation XVII (from his Devotions on Emergent Occasions) has resonated with me.  (It's the "Never ask to know for whom the bell tolls.... thing.)

Well, through this discovery and operation and now recovery I have felt more support and more presence of others -- it's uncanny and somewhat unsettling to me: I wasn't in any way expecting that.  Prayers, good thoughts, well wishes, and food: amazing how much it has moved me and made me feel part of something much larger than myself.  I reckon having lived with the Donne all these years has sort of predisposed me to think of things that way, but it's never happened to me in such a felt, concrete way.  Wild.

Humbled, I am.  Humbled at the power of connection between people.  It doesn't have to be religious (although I do in some sense see it as deeply spiritual), but there's something about being part of the human experience that binds us together into a whole.  All are a part of the continent, a piece of the main.

So, I feel a gratitude that surpasses understanding.  A wholeness, a connectedness that I find amazingly comforting.

Sure, I'm going to have to shuffle off this mortal coil soon.  But man, have I had a richness of people who have walked through life with me.

Wild, isn't it?

Makes me wonder if something like this isn't at root underneath a lot of religion.

At any rate, I feel a deep gratitude to all who have expressed good wishes, and especially those who have sent me food.  ;)

I may not have a lot of time left, but I'll live it as a different man.