Dear Caton ~ I know that I am two thousand miles away from you and your family, me being here in Seattle. It was last month, October, that I was there in Hot Springs. It was warmer than Seattle and the trees hadn’t started to wear their fall colors. Annie and I were there for the film festival. Your lovely Mother drove us from the hotel door in Hot Springs to the airport in Little Rock on our way back home. As we drove east into the most magnificent sunrise we got to know Lisa and learned of your story.
It sounded grueling then, all the procedures that you had been through in your ordeal with your cancer. And I know that you have been through more since then. Please if you don’t mind I would like to salute your bravery. I have cancer too but mine even though it sounds bad in the language of the doctors is something less bad in my reality. Somehow it is lazy enough to be out maneuvered, or porous enough for it’s strength to be diluted or maybe disorganized enough to be stalled. I am trying to put it in terms that we use everyday instead of doctor language. Anyway, I have been successful in eking out some years of life from my stage four. Sorry, doctor language there, from my dire straits maybe.
That’s my story these days. I have been granted some time, some precious time. And I feel a need to be with you now, to let you know that you are loved and being held by thousands of pairs hands that are not visible. All is well even though things in general have seemed strange since you left your familiar basketball court and your friends there. We all are holding the Universe steady for you in some inexplicable way. We all expect things to go well for you. You be steady just as the Universe is steady for you.
I am off to do the things that my day requires. Later this afternoon I am meeting with my spiritual advisor, Sister Joyce. She is a very wise person that always understands and always makes things right. We will speak of your bravery. Thank you Caton for letting me know you, we all make each other’s lives richer. Only love to you and your family and friends always, Phil Volker.
If I’m not too late, please make sure Sister Joyce gets a good photo taken of you and her when she visits today. She may be too humble to want to be in the photo. She will be writing an article about you for our upcoming winter issue of Salt magazine, a BVM publication. I am writer/editor in the BVM communications office at Mount Carmel in Dubuque, Iowa. Have been reading your blog for some weeks now and enjoy very much. Wishing you all the best each day and continue writing your blog!
Jody ~ we didn’t meet this morning but will soon and have a photographer along. Let us know level of photo quality you need. Glad you like the blog. Phil.
Phil,
.jpeg photos with resolution of 300 dpi would be great; 600 dpi would be even better. The main idea is to get you and Sister Joyce together (not posed) – more of a candid shot, the two of you talking to each other, walking, etc., but please make sure we can see your faces. I’m sure the photographer will know what to do. Thanks again for sharing your life and challenges. I love your descriptions of the ordinary, everyday routines that mean so much. Have a good day.
Thanks Jodi. Will pass this on to our photographer. Glad you are getting something out of Caminoheads blog. Felipe.
When you write like this, Felipe, brother, I’m as reinforced as concrete in my admiration of you. A battalion, or a company, or even a platoon of Pilgrim Phils, and this world would bath in kindness.
Thanks for who you are and what you do and the way you do it.
SF,
PFJ
Thank you Phil! I read this to Caton. Sharing this journey of life with Cancer is our common thread but your story has been so inspiring to me and so many others!! So excited the Phil’s Camino dvs is almost ready. Meeting you and Annie that morning blessed me beyond belief! I would love to come visit you soon and walk and talk with you more!! Blessings and peace in your daily walk. -Lisa Jones
Lisa ~ It was such a pleasure to meet you on that glorious morning. You are such a treasure, a calm in the middle of a whirlwind. Yes, come when the time is right. Hello to your magnificent son. Praying and thinking, Felipe.x