"Life is Good"

Wow, has it really been almost 2 months since we posted anything here? Sorry about that. Shortly after I posted this, we began a whirlwind of moving back to Austin from Taipei, Christmas, New Year's, etc. We've got lots of pictures and stories that we'll eventually post here - like the ones that Amy and the kids took when they ate at the "Modern Toilet" restaurant in Taipei (yes, Gary, it's real!).

2008 was such a year. We started it with hopes of moving to Granbury, TX and building our dream house on our dream land (2.5 acres with a pond). We put our house on the market right about the time we were informed that we were in a recession. Timing has never been one of my strong suits. But we shortly learned that in a buyer's market you are generally more excited about your house than the rest of the market.

Then in May we lost my Grandma Clarkson. This was sad, but part of the roller coaster of life:

"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it." - Grandma, from the movie Parenthood (1989)

By June I think we were starting to realize that our house wasn't going to command the price we were hoping to get. That same month, my company asked if I would move to Taipei with my family for a year. This was an unbelievable opportunity both professionally and personally and it just "felt right" so in Ronamy fashion we made a major life decision in a matter of minutes. As it turns out, Granbury was NOT the "Great Move of 2008" after all.

July 28 was the day that we flew from Austin to Taipei to start our adventure. On July 23 (Amy's birthday) I got a call from my Mom saying that the doctors found a tumor in my dad's esophagus. The pathology report hadn't come back yet, but given his weight loss I think we all feared the worse. Within a day, the doctors confirmed our fears: he had cancer.

And we were faced with a major decision: stay or go. After several days of counseling from friends and family and lots of prayer, we decided to go. We didn't know what the future would hold for dad's treatment and both he and mom encouraged us to go.

We had a life-changing experience in Taipei. We had to move to one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world to realize that our lives were too complex: always on the go, running from event to event...

By November, the stress of being away from Mom and Dad while they were dealing with dad's illness became too much for me to handle. I was burning the candle at both ends - in the office in Taipei during the night and taking calls with the rest of the world at all hours in the night. My boss was the one who finally asked me one day, "How's your dad?"

That question immediately made me realize that while our time in Taipei was a rich blessing of immeasurable quantity, we needed to be home. This decision was even further confirmed when I stopped by during a trip to the U.S. to see mom and dad for dad's birthday.

As fast as my company got us to Taipei, they brought us home. I can't say enough about that. At great cost to them, my well-being and the well-being of my family was their first priority. Within 2 weeks, our stuff was packed back up and on a ship heading for Houston through the Panama Canal. Again.

After a long and difficult set of Radiation and Chemo treatments, the doctors told us that the tumor in dad's esophagus was practically gone and that the best course of action would be to remove the affected and surrounding areas to ensure any cancer cells hiding out could be removed from his body.

2008 came and went, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Goodbye.

A date was finally set for the difficult surgery: Tuesday, February 3rd and we all began to look forward to that date, hoping it would be the day dad was cured of cancer.

On Friday, January 30th I was on the way home from the airport after a long week of meetings in Vegas and filming a video for work in Cupertino. All I wanted to do was to go home, see my family, meet Keely's hairy-legged boyfriend (more on that later I suppose), and go to bed. I called my mom just to check in and she said that they had spent the better part of the day running errands and that they were both going to lay down for an afternoon nap.

An hour later I got a call from Kristi (my sister) that started with, "Ronny, where are you?" (How sad of a commentary is that question? No telling where I am these days!) "Mom just called and said that her house is on fire. They're ok."

It took a few seconds for the magnitude of the situation to fully sink in to my thick skull. I tried mom's cell phone a few times before I finally got her. As soon as I heard her voice I knew I had to get there as soon as possible. It's about a 3 hour drive.

James and Kristi arrived before the sun went down and were able to snap a picture of the damage. We got there about an hour later. By then mom was more calm and we were able to go into their townhouse and assess the damage. The fire itself only damaged one room: mom's sewing room. Even then, the damage was minor. The window blew out from the heat and the back of her TV was melted and some Willow Tree statuettes were singed and broken (but even more precious now).

The next day we drove back and removed what we could from the apartment. The vast majority of damage from the smoke and water. They were lucky and we were able to remove most furniture, but things like the couch and mattresses were lost because of the water (they soaked it up like a sponge).

For a brief moment, we forgot about dad's impending surgery. It's amazing to me how much capacity we have for trauma. God tells us that he won't test us beyond what we can handle. I guess that's right.

We had a great day on Sunday at our house. Dad rested on the couch, watching fishing shows in HD and we did what we always do when we gather - cook! Dad even felt good enough to cook a gumbo for lunch. We had fajitas for dinner. The kids had a good time going through mom and dad's memories - listening to stories, remembering forgotten memories. God knew we needed this time.

Our kids stayed with "the neighbors" (Nicole and Marcelo - one of many unbelievable blessings!) during the week and we loaded up to get mom and dad into a hotel for the night.

Tuesday came and we gathered at the hospital back in Pasadena. My Aunt Lois had flown in from Kansas on Monday to be with my mom during all this. We knew it was going to be a long surgery. At one point we got an update from a nurse saying that everything was going well and that we should go get some lunch. We had just gotten to the restaurant when we got a call from the hospital saying that the surgeon wanted to talk to us.

The drive back to the hospital was long and silent. Red lights were excruciating.

When we got there, we learned that dad was fine and recovering from the surgery. But then he told us that he decided not to perform the full surgery because he had found "millimeter-sized" groups of cells throughout his abdomen which meant that the cancer had already started to spread. Who knew how long ago that happened? These cells just could not be detected without looking inside of him.

"So this means he's incurable?"

"Yes."

Then the anger sets in. Stupid cancer. You always hear about it taking loved ones away from other people, but not you. Not your loved ones.

We all kinda went our separate ways that afternoon, trying to comprehend what we'd just heard. Over the next couple of hours, we slowly started to realize what a blessing this diagnosis was. Because he didn't have the full surgery, he wouldn't have to spend 8-9 months in constant pain - recovering from the "cure"! The irony in all of this, and I think that's just the way it is with stupid cancer is that the treatment ultimately causes more damage than the disease.

The next day we set about finding a new home for mom and dad and generally dealing with the aftermath of the fire. In many ways, this was also a blessing because it kept us all busy while trying to come to grips with the situation.

She found a new town home literally next door to her office at Kinder Care and only a few minutes away from dad's doctor's and the hospital! What a difference 24 hours makes! At this point, our anger had ceded (for now) and the rest of the week began to shower us with more blessings, both big and small.

We'll take what we can get and through it all, "Life is good."



(I snapped this picture in my mom's sewing room on the day after the fire.)

Tim and Janet, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa... just know that your family is with you through all of this and that we love you. And your friends are right there as well, waiting to get the news every single day and wondering/asking how they can help. People that you don't even know are asking about you. We'll get through this with some tears and some anger, some laughter and some joy. We're all praying for you and we're blessed not only by your presence in our lives, but by the richness of the blessings that are sprouting up out of the ashes. Through it all, life is good, and God is great.