One Day at a Time

Dear friends -

I had thought that I would merrily roll on into October with a new blog post, ready to dive back into quilting and pattern-writing.  Somewhere in September, though, life went terrible bad for me.  On September 20, I got a phone call from the skilled nursing facility we had placed him in:  my beautiful soul-mate had died in the early morning hours as he slept.  Most of the world never knew what a hero he was, saving the Apollo 11 first landing from a disastrous abort.  But anyone who knew Jack knew he never talked about it because his view was that he was "just part of the team."  Below is a copy of the New York Times article on his early contribution.  Who do you know that gets their obit in the NY Times?  Jack does, that's who.  But for me, his biggest contribution was as a husband, father and friend.  As the president of the University of Houston-Clear Lake said during Jack's celebration of life this past Sunday, "Jack and Sue were truly 'one' - like Romeo and Juliet, there was Jack and Sue.  Like Tracy and Hepburn, there was Jack and Sue...." and so on.  He was right.  We loved each other so very much.  Others shared his contribution to building the groundwork for the International Space Station, his great friendship and ability to make you feel like YOU were his best friend, though he only had about a million such best friends (but you were his best!), his mentoring and teaching, his generous contributions to community and university organizations, and his tremendous ability to help me grow two of the finest young daughters and their four children.  They brought us years of unbridled joy.

On a note that is perhaps sadder to those who know me and not Jack, I received bad news about my lung cancer.  It is progressing rapidly.  My chemo is not working for the second month in a row so my oncologist is changing me to a third chemo in the hope that it works.  For those who think I may be a candidate for immune therapy, think again.  Immune therapy currently only works in 10-15 percent of cancers.  With the particular chromosome defect that I have, it works in only half of those 10-15 percent.  So I am diving into an older chemo that promises to be incredibly intolerable.  I could get angry, but instead, I am just reminded that 1) I have lived a blessed life full of enormous joy, and 2) I really don't want to wake up or go to bed angry because I drew the random black bead that will now make my life quite short (hopefully not, but I'm also a pretty realistic person who does not fear the future, thankfully).  I will keep in touch.... and perhaps next month you will see more quilts.  It's my goal!

Here's the article on the love of my life.

Hugs to all -
Sue

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/us/jack-garman-whose-judgment-call-saved-moon-landing-dies-at-72.html?_r=0