When Cancer is Chronic...Focus on LIFE

So chronic recurring cancer is indeed a bit surreal!  Dear readers, I am truly doing fine - still working full time, living my life (with emphasis on LIVING!!)  The knowledge that these buggies are still there is the surreal part - will they grow?  Shrink?  MELT??

So I embrace each day and thank the universe that I am still here with my love Beth, our (now calm and happy) pup Hubert, our beautiful yard in the amazing New England autumn.

Our Unitarian congregation does much support work for programs supporting the homeless population in RI.  I remember so distinctly those 7 years at Travelers Aid - the many amazing folks I met whose lives had landed them in shelters and on the streets.  As we always said - most of us could be little more than a paycheck away.  Once homeless adults have at least a semi permanent place to live, opportunities for education and employment are of course key.  Programs like Amos House's Friendship Cafe and other training programs that put folks to work are major models to address homelessness.

But of course until we reform our political economy, and address the growing distance between wealth and poverty, and the gradual erosion of the middle class, we will only see MORE people pushed into poverty.

I call this the "melting middle"  !  And until we stem this melting into poverty, until we stimulate education and job creation, this global melting will spread and continue.

So I celebrate my continued LIFE and look to continue speaking out for social justice, jobs with justice and opportunity that doesn't pit the middle class against the poor.   So I'm going to hang around as long as I can to work towards this shared future.  More to come... I fight not only cancer, but the ills of our society!!