Brennan’s Story

With a deep relaxing breath my eyes briefly close and the tension from my hobbled race through the Columbia, SC airport begins to fade. My thoughts drift to my beautiful new book, “Peace Like a River,” which sits dog-eared in my lap waiting to be finished. I close my eyes for a minute and drift.

Its been a long time, and that’s a good thing, I guess. I begin writing this from the darkness of my bed at Grizzly House on the St. Jude campus. The room is dark with the exception of residual light from my laptop monitor, concentrating its dull glow on me as Brennan sleeps soundly in the adjacent bed. It is our last night here from a fairly rigorous week of examinations, scans, screenings, samplings and reunion, as Brennan undergoes the most thorough check-up of his remission. It is now well past the middle of night. My mind is racing, so I write.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
– Someone

…. At least that’s my belief, and I pray the belief of those who have communicated in some form or fashion that the Carepage and Blog updates about Brennan have been missing. Officially, the Carepage updates are over; however, with the new medium of our Press On website, and the Blog post section designed for the specific purpose of providing updates on Brennan, his health and status, I figure that we’ve laid off for long enough.

They say I’ll never swim in the ocean. They say I’ll never sing on the moon.
-Possibilities, Turner Simkins and Joe Stevenson

Last Fall, I was eating lunch with Turner and our friend, Joe Stevenson, the Executive Director of 12 Bands. Joe was sharing how much he was enjoying a creative songwriting phase in his life, and I mentioned how much I would love to write a song about childhood cancer which focused on the possibilities instead of the inevitabilities. I am and continue to be inspired by what the human spirit can accomplish when told, “you can’t.” Don’t get me wrong. I am a realist, but I am also a dreamer. If there is even the slightest possibility that something may be accomplished, some barrier may be pushed, some new ground broken, then I believe there is value in the effort of reaching for that possibility. If it turns out that the dream cannot be realized in the end, I tend to see how the dream actually was realized in every step taken toward its ultimate goal. The magic happens in the believing in the dream and the inspired action taken toward achieving the dream, not in reaching the ultimate goal.

“You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.”
– Crosby, Still, Nash and Young

Attending church by myself is not something I grew up doing. As a matter of fact, in such circumstances, I probably would have creeped myself out not that long ago. Things change, though. What would at one time have been a straight shot into the bowels of discomposure has transmogrified itself into an amazingly accurate channel for insight.

Gasping atop the steps leading from the Mississippi to our home-away-from home atop the bluff in Memphis, the remaining warmth from the setting sun cascaded itself around the gigantic steel girders of the railroad bridge in front of me. Looking up, it was blinding.