Fear of Possibilities

 

Humans have a great ability to predict the future. We’re usually wrong. What we fear will happen often does not and it holds us back from living today with gusto. We live as people dead before we actually die. Which is almost the same thing.

A friend was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but I didn’t know this. No one did. I wanted to say something that would help, but from my time with people dealing with grief, I knew that my friend didn’t need platitudes. Words are no help right after someone receives the news that they have cancer. What she needed was someone to sit beside her for a time as the cold shadows of her fears drew near.

It Sits Between a Man's Bladder and His Old Feather

My title is a quote by Stephen Fry who was treated for prostate cancer and bemoaned men’s reluctance to talk about the prevalence of the cancer simply because it involved their penis.

Mark Shanahan interviewed Fry for his video series for The Boston Globe that first aired in 2020 and was updated in 2025. It’s a six-part series that is informative, hugely funny, and quite personal. The interviews with leading cancer doctors, including Dr. Drew Pinsky, are filled with details about how treatments have greatly improved since the 1980s.

Hope Is

 

Hope is the thing with … barbed wire. 

Hope definitely doesn’t have FEATHERS, all fluttery and light, although it might if a circus clown like Emmett Kelly is trying to sweep up a spotlight with a feather, making us feel sad at his seemingly impossible task. I want something solid. 

Hope is a great stone mountain that doesn’t move. It’s the bright North Star in the night sky that I know will always be there, even if I can’t see it because of the clouds.