Read the whole series:

A Little Medical News
Part 1: Off to the Hospital
Part 2: Homeward Bound
Part 3: No Place Like Home

Today, June 29, I mark my two-week anniversary since the surgery. Every day has been a benchmark of one kind or another — my first trip outside the house, my first shower, my first walk through Publix to pick up milk. Today, for the first time, I drove somewhere by myself — to the bank and the local WaWa.

My drive took me past the usual suburban Orlando landmarks — used car lots, storage units, Dollar General, Circle K, Walgreen’s, McDonald’s. It was Apopka, Florida, but as far as I was concerned, it was the Champs-Élysées and it was beautiful.

This is my life. Miracles abound.

And in my journey, as I pray my way from day to day and wonder what lies ahead — well, for one thing, I have my first follow-up with my surgeon tomorrow — I find myself circling back again and again to one simple notion.

Gratitude. Thanksgiving. Gratefulness. Any synonym will do. I’m just so damn thankful. For everything.

I’m thankful to God for walking with me. Since my diagnosis, I’ve never felt alone, frightened, abandoned or forgotten. I imagine him telling me, if I ever doubted it, “I’ve got this.” 

I’m thankful for my wife. God, I’m thankful for Siobhain, and all she did and does to remind me how much I’m loved, even with the mess of life and bandages and sutures and bags and tubes. I love her and I don’t know how I would have made it these two weeks without her.

I’m thankful for Mary. Yes, that Mary. She’s been looking out for me, I know it. It started before I was born, 67 years ago, when my parents and my sister prayed the Miraculous Medal Novena at a small church in Wheaton, Maryland, praying for the unborn baby who was coming into the world, praying that it would beat the odds and would survive. It did. I did.

I’m thankful for friends and strangers from so many places who heard about my diagnosis and dropped me a note or sent a text. “I’m praying for you.” “We added you to our prayer circle.” “I said Mass for you this morning.” “I lit a candle at the grotto for you.” I can never repay that kind of quiet kindness and generosity of spirit.

Last week, I got this lovely card, from my friend Elizabeth Scalia. I don’t know why it moved me so much — maybe it was just the notion that strangers in the middle of America, in a cloister far from Florida, were praying for me, because that’s what Catholics do. I know it helped hasten my recovery. Don’t ask me how. I can’t explain it. Thank you, Elizabeth.

In recent days, I joined a Facebook group for prostate cancer survivors, and I’ve read accounts of men who are facing tougher battles than mine. I’ve made them my project. Every night, when my wife and I pray, I hold in my heart all those around the world who are facing a diagnosis of cancer, all those who are frightened or overwhelmed, the ones who can’t get the health care they need or the support they want, or who feel just utterly alone.

Lord, have mercy. Walk beside them as you have walked beside me. Give the lonely, comfort…the despairing, hope…the frightened, courage. Help them to fight and win. Help the unbelievers to believe. Let them know they are loved. 

A favorite story I like to tell at retreats and parish missions is about the hymn “Now Thank We All Our God,” which began as a prayer composed by a Lutheran deacon, Martin Rinkart, in Germany in the middle of the 30 Years War. (You can read more about it here.) He wrote it for his children to pray at night. Their mother had died from the plague, and the entire village was ravaged by sickness and grief. But in the midst of plague, amid heartbreak and death, Rinkart didn’t write a prayer of petition. Instead, he wrote a prayer of thanksgiving, expressing unending gratitude to God for “the wondrous things” he’s done, “in whom this world rejoices.”

That resonates with me right now.

I know I’m not out of the woods — there are acres of trees stretching before me — but I can’t help but thank God for getting me this far, for keeping up my spirits, for giving me more opportunities to write and preach and pray, and for giving me Siobhain as my companion on the journey.

I can’t look at what I don’t have — it will be awhile before I’m swimming laps in the pool, and right now every sneeze and giggle is fraught with peril that makes me double-check my lap — but I can look at what I have.

When I do, I’m so unbelievably grateful.

Blessed Solanus Casey used to tell people, “Thank God ahead of time.” I’m on board with that.

Thank you, God — for what has been, what is, and what will be.