“This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks…”

Wait.

Are we sure this is how all great pieces of writing are supposed to begin?

Over the past few months, I have tried my hand at prose. Well, writing. Let’s not get carried away and start handing out velvet smoking jackets and literary awards. I am not some grand genius of the written word.

I am just a man trying to catalog the journey.

A journey of discovery, health, and wellness.

There it is. I said the big three together.

Discovery. Health. Wellness.

Now it sounds like I am about to sell you some magic cure-all in a shiny bottle with a label full of promises and a price tag ending in ninety-nine.

I wish I had found one.

But alas, there is no cure-all.

The best we can do is listen to our bodies. Pay attention. Adapt. Adjust. Change direction when the road starts washing out. Find whatever honest word fits the moment and then do the work that word requires.

Scars? I have got a few.

No, I am not about to start “sanging,” as my Mamma would say. Nobody signed up to hear me sang a song, and public safety still matters.

But here is what I can say.

I did it my way.

Not perfectly. Not prettily. Not with a map drawn by experts and framed in gold.

But I did it with the tools I had, the lessons I survived, the people who stayed, the body that kept talking, and the stubborn decision to keep listening.

“The people who stayed.”

That line opens a door I do not walk through lightly.

My first thought this morning was to write something light.

Maybe something humorous.

Maybe something with a little bounce in its step, the kind of piece that walks in wearing a crooked grin and does not ask too much of anybody.

But somewhere inside, my internal narrator cleared his throat.

There was something else that needed to be said first.

Something that has been kicking around in the back room for a while, bumping into the furniture, refusing to sit down and be quiet.

So before I get too clever, before I try to dress this up with too many jokes, I need to get this out in the open.

Two years ago, there were five of us in the hospital system where I work who were diagnosed with cancer. Five people. Five stories. Five battles that none of us asked to fight.

Now here we are in 2026, and I am left standing on the hill alone.

The others are gone.

And let me say this clearly: they fought like hell.

That is one of those battle scars that never really goes away. The loss. The memory. The question that does not have the decency to answer itself.

Why am I still here?

I do not know.

I am not some cancer survivor standing on top of a hill screaming, “I have the answers.”

I do not.

I lived, and honestly, I do not know why.

Maybe there are reasons. Maybe there are pieces of the story I cannot see from where I stand. Maybe the only honest thing I can do is keep walking with humility, remembering that survival is not a trophy. It is a responsibility.

My story is not over.

It continues.

My story continues, and the shadow of cancer lingers.

Cancer sits in the back of your mind, or in the corner of your eye, just out of view. Still there. Not done. Vicious. Cunning. A hunter.

It hunts your vulnerabilities.

I do not sit here feeling like I won the lottery because I survived.

Truth is, I have not survived.

I have made it to the next day.

Will I make it to the day after tomorrow? I do not know. My oncologist does not know. My cardiologist does not know. None of us knows.

Why did the others not make it?

They were younger. Smarter. More handsome. Prettier. Stronger in ways I admired. They used many of the same tools that I did. They fought. They hoped. They adapted. They did the work.

And still, they are gone.

So I cannot sit here and say it was something special I did. I cannot turn my life into a formula and their loss into a failure. I will not do that to them.

What I can do is keep walking.

In their memory.

For my wife.

For my kids.

For my grandkids.

And, if I am blessed enough, for my great-grandkids.

Please do not mistake my writing for a victory speech. It is not a rant from someone claiming to be better, stronger, wiser, or more deserving.

I am not better.

I am still here.

And being still here carries its own weight.

Look at the time. It is 5:07 a.m., and here I am writing about the battle before I have even had my coffee.

That is another part of this journey I was not warned about.

Sometimes it consumes your every thought.

Sometimes the shadow sits at the breakfast table before you do. Sometimes it waits in the quiet. Sometimes it shows up in the middle of the night and starts asking questions nobody can answer.

And yes, there is survivor’s guilt.

There is that ache that comes when others did not make it to the next day, and you did.

I do not have a neat answer for that.

But I do know this: writing helps.

This writing is not me selling answers.

It is not me polishing a trophy.

It is not me pretending I have conquered the beast and mounted its head on the wall.

This writing is one more way I remind myself to live the day in front of me.

Pick up the fork.

Take that first step.

Do the part that is mine.