It is the time for telling secrets that have held you or others prisoner. It is a time to come out of any "cage of guilt"*²⁶ created at first by a little lie or deceptive omission, but perpetuated by more lies to protect the first making the bars bigger and bigger. It is not just about breakout freedom or divine forgiveness, but it is “…so that the person you're confessing to knows that they're not alone."*¹⁴ Small lies and omissions are common in life, but they seldom forecast the entrapment they create.

CREATE A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GENERATIONS COME

All of these writings, pictures, voice recordings and videos create a “partnership of the generations between those who are living, those who have passed and those who are yet to be born"*²⁴ If you do these things you can start living forever right now. As The Gladiator, Maximus Decimus Maridius,  inspired his legions, "What we do here today will echo in eternity.”*²⁵ If you pass the baton well, it will resound through the generations.

CREATE A MEASURE OF YOUR OWN PEACE

Carl professed no fear of death, but a terrible fear of being forgotten. He feared that in the end, his life would not have really mattered. He confided that his worst fear was that he would drop the baton and die with regrets.

 He was a man of few words, but a big heart. His family was so scattered and distant that few could afford to visit him and he was beyond traveling. He knew he couldn't call them and be able to say what he wanted to say – there was just too much.

CONTINUED: There are times when the intended recipient isn’t physically present, emotionally mature or spiritually receptive enough – yet, and there is the hope that more years of living will bring them to a place of readiness. So some many will  write planning for their words to be read six months, a year or many years later: on key birthdays 16, 21, 40 or on the eve of a marriage, year three or four when infatuation is fading and the birth of a child.

A  STRATEGY FOR YOUNG AND UNREADY

When you decide what direction your journey will take, find a fellow traveler, a friend or a mentor, or someone on the track ahead of you.  While you’re at it, get out the bucket list you made in the first stretch and start punching it. Be intentional about both the journey and the list, and schedule them. But remember that memories of what you have done are not nearly as good as hopes of what you will do. Perhaps the journey will reveal hopes that disease and time cannot erase.

The cancer treatment is over and much of the medical professionals disappear or move only into a surveillance mode. There is growing information to suggest that lifestyle, nutrition, exercise and attitude can affect gene expression and cell behavior of both healthy, not so healthy and malignant cells - upregulating or down regulating certain cellular behaviors by affecting their microenvironments through a mechanism called epigenetics.  While special diets cannot cure cancer, they may have a role in keeping it at bay and preventing it from regrowing.

Everything about cancer makes you tired: the diagnosis, the depression, the treatment and the inactivity. A 2013 review of 56 studies on cancer related fatigue and exercise reported in the Harvard Men’s Health Watch suggests “that instead of resting, people with cancer related fatigue should try aerobic exercise if they can. This includes brisk walking, a light workout on a treadmill or exercise cycle, or water aerobics.” Weight lifting was of no benefit against fatigue. In addition to the physical benefits, exercise improves sleep and lessons depression.

OPTIMIZING YOUR BASIC HEALTH

“There are only two kinds of people, those who have dreams and those who had dreams!” (Gino Grunberg)