It is somehow appropriate that tonight is a full moon, here at the beginning of a new year, and on this day specifically; January 2^nd.  Eleven years…cancer free.  At this time all those years ago, I was finishing up my final 8-hour treatment and heading home for a celebration dinner Louise had prepared. It was the last time my blood count would plummet, the last time my bones would ache, the last time I would be without the oxygen-carrying blood cells I needed to breathe.  There were still scans and blood work and constant appointments for months to come, but the chemo was complete.  I got the cancer free stamp, which every cancer patient covets.  Added time.  Extra years.  Time to re-prioritize and to learn to live fully.  Some folks don’t understand our family’s tradition of “celebrating disease and disaster.”  I don’t see it that way.  I celebrate resurrection.  Life coming from death.  The disease could have easily ended my life, but it didn’t.  It extended it, by teaching me how to practice self-care and how to embrace every moment.  Healing happened.  I am ever grateful for the gift I didn’t deserve, but joyously received. How could I not mark that day with an altar of thankfulness?

On this 11-year anniversary, I gaze at the moon. I have long had a love affair with the silver orb in the sky.  The way it reflects light fascinates me.  A rock…in the sky…glowing so brightly the night shadows disappear.  The magnificence never ceases to amaze me.  It is stunning. It causes me to want to brave the cold and step outside to see. I love to watch it rise, luminous and enormous along the horizon. Tonight, it is brilliant white.  Heaven’s spotlight.  Highlighting the silver frost resting on mountains and pastures. It continues its path with the trees reaching to take hold of it, but unable to stop its climb into the sky.  It shines in the frigid stillness bringing with it a peaceful calm.  All of it…a reflection of the sun.

I want my extended life to be like the moon.  I want it to reflect the light of God…my rock self, with all my craters and scars.  I want to glow, and to shine peaceful calm that changes the environment and chases the shadows away. It is something to aspire to, for however many years I end up with to live fully.