By the following January, a lump protruded on my back. In February of ’89, I underwent thoracic surgery to remove that rib and its adjacent muscles. The cells in that rib were clearly malignant, and so, barely repaired, I embarked on four months of chemotherapy. Today, as of my last checkup, I am well and forever changed.

I had, quite frankly, found death at my shoulder earlier than most. Yet I had also been touched by a relentless, mysterious grace, which surfaced briefly to restore me. Now, I find myself tied to a fathomless place where I had not dared to voyage. I call that reservoir God, though you may call it something else.

Though my story is framed around a particular crisis, I believe that all forms of crisis somehow raise a common instinct to survive, and with that a common set of tools—such as risk, trust, compassion, and surrender—becomes available to all. And coming this far, it seems clear that being a survivor is embracing the will to live, and whether that embrace lasts for years or months or days or even hours, whoever embraces life is a survivor.

Sooner or later, we’re asked to be honest with our fears and hopes, to render, through our experience, the irreducible mystery of life in which we all swim. After all this way, I know that I am weak and strong, stubborn and determined, afraid and brave, giving and demanding, resilient and stalled, confused and clear—sometimes all at once. I know now that going on without denying any aspect of the human drama is what strength is all about.

We’d been on fire and almost burned to death, only to be tossed more deeply into the ocean of life, where we almost drowned. Now, we were cast ashore, to start over and find our way, which was a difficult blessing all by itself, one we ultimately couldn’t do together.

It was four years later that Ann and I divorced. It was no one’s fault. When a large stone falls into a lake, the water around it is sent in all directions away from the point of impact. Events like cancer are such large stones crashing from nowhere into the water of our lives. If you happen to be on the same side of the point of impact, you might be propelled in a similar direction. But sometimes, as with Ann and I, the cancer landed right between us and we were propelled in opposite directions into the rest of our lives. From all these years later, it’s humbling to realize the power and aftershock of cancer or any life-changing experience. While no longer in close contact, we helped save each other’s lives. And so, all there is to say is thank you, even to the unspeakable thing that crashed into our lives.

A STORY THAT CONTINUES TO BE WRITTEN