I am really supposed to count from the point of diagnosis, which would be February 1993. That is the official way to delineate a cancer survivor. You count from the day you find out that you have cancer. Kathy, the leader of my cancer support group at St. Jude says, "If you live through the day you find out, then you are a cancer survivor." And she is right, of course. For some reason, I have never done it that way. I have always counted from the day of my biggest surgery, June 15, 1993. By June of that year, I had been in the hospital for a very long time, and then a day or two before my big surgery they let me out for an afternoon. Looking back, I think this might have been in case the surgery had gone bad and I didn't make it through. Let Dave have a nice final experience outside the hospital. This never occurred to me at the time but it seems kind of obvious in retrospect. My Mom and Dad helped me to the rental car and we headed over to Balboa Park. This was my request. I had lived for the better part of 5 months in my various hospital rooms and I wanted some outside time. I think maybe Balboa Park came to mind, because that was the place that had originally brought me to San Diego. The Old Globe Theater is located within the park grounds, and acting there had been my introduction to America's Finest City, as it is called. Also, the Park is right in the middle of San Diego and it wouldn't be all that far a drive for us. (in case I got sick and needed to head back)Once we reached the park, I asked Mom and Dad to take me to the "Tree of Life" as I called it then. (and still do) It's a huge Magnolia tree that sits in the park not far from the San Diego Junior Theater. It's actually located directly in front of a little fast food place we dubbed the "Gag Shack" back when I was acting at The Old Globe. When I say this tree is huge, I mean huge! Children have always loved to climb all over it, and it could, in those days, accommodate 5 to 25 of them at a time! I say, in those days, because they have since built a fence around the tree to protect it, and no one climbs on it anymore, although it does seem to be a favorite subject of drawing classes.Personally, I had always just liked being in this tree's presence. Back when I was healthy, I would take a book and read in its shade with my back up against its sprawling trunk. Or I would sit a little way across the park and just watch the wind in it's branches. It was a comforting place. A tranquil, happy place, and even if it was only in my subconscious at the time, it was where I wanted to spend maybe my last afternoon. And so I did. My Dad was off parking the car, and getting us something to drink from the gag shack. Mom and I found a park bench with a good vantage point on the tree. She talked to me quietly while I tried to focus on what she was saying. My Dad eventually joined us, and the three of us just sat there watching the children play on the broad shoulders of that old tree.
It was all right there at that moment. Old, steady timeless life with happy laughing young life draped all over it. The tree and the children. The children and the tree. And, of course, the two people that had given me life. And, of course, me. It was all right there, and it was all good.
June 15, 2008 makes 15 years since that big surgery. 15 years that I have counted myself cancer free and a cancer survivor. 15 years with so many all good moments that I can't even count them. I am extremely healthy, now, and there is a pretty good prospect for 15 more years for me, and then 15 more, and maybe even 15 more.
I sincerely hope those years happen for me, but it doesn't really matter, because I learned something that day 15 years ago. That day with my Mom and Dad, and the impending surgery, and the rental car, and the the gag shack and the park bench, and the laughing children and the tree of life. I learned that it is all right here for us, all the time, and it's all good.
Here's to 15 years!
David Grant Wright
