How to sum up 2021?
- I completed a year of gene therapy and thought I had the upper hand on my cancer.
- The cancer hit back. I ended up in surgery in October to remove a metastasized tumour from inside my head (radiation therapy and then immunotherapy have followed).
- My first novel published earlier this month—an accomplishment 25+ years in the making.
- My autistic son has continued to suffer from the social isolation of the pandemic and the stress of any attempt to return to school.
- Then there is my wife, Natalie Cox-Valiquette—holding it all together. I would rather, frankly, be the cancer patient than the spouse of one, stuck in her shoes.
- Meanwhile, the support and best wishes we have received from so many people through all this has renewed our hope and faith in humanity … despite all we’ve seen over the past year from around the world that might suggest such hope and faith is folly.
- And all this against the backdrop of the pandemic.
What matters is that our family is still here!
That this is the last day of one year and tomorrow the start of another may be a rather arbitrary construct of us puny mortals, of little significance in the Grand Scheme of the Cosmos. Still, it’s worthwhile to take this time to pause, reflect, and consider what we might do different, and better, in the 12 months to come.
For me, the big thing remains holding fast to what may be cliché, but only because it remains timeless and true:
“There may be many things you cannot change, but it absolutely is your choice to decide how you are going to react to them.”
I sincerely believe the light will brighten for us at the end of the tunnel through 2022, even if it remains hard to spot at present. This of course depends on the majority of us doing what we can to ensure that common sense and reason prevail … aided by a vaccine or two.
We can do this!
Stay safe and keep the faith, through 2022 and beyond.
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