Some days don’t go as planned. We’re out of groceries. The water heater explodes in the attic. Deadlines loom large. There’s slop in our storm drains, holes in the road. And the worst—we’re out of coffee.
Just when I’m about to throw in the towel, give up my dreams, and get back into the plan of somebody else’s best idea, I meet Tom.
He’s jumping rope every day as I walk to work. How long can he do that, I wonder? How many hops? I can barely do five minutes.
I say hello. Ask about his workout. He tells me he’s been cancer-free for two years.
Cancer, I say, incredulous. He doesn’t look like the picture of cancer, with his full head of hair and slim, muscular build. He looks like someone you’d see at the start of a marathon.
How did you do it? I ask. What’s your secret?
Stay positive, he says. He learned that from his father, who lived to be 96.
Over his cancer journey, he shut out all naysaying relatives and friends and covered the mirror. He told himself only good things. He always got his workouts in, even in the middle of the night. Now the tumor’s so small it doesn’t show anymore on the X-rays.
Hmm, just like that? I ask.
Yep. Tapping his head, he says, It’s all in here.
