It's really ironic, isn't it, how we spend our youth tossing caution to the wind at every turn, believing we will live forever?I know I did. I think we all do, when we are growing up.

I grew up in the baby boomer generation, for example, and the only cares we had was going to school, riding our bikes around the neighborhood until dark, going home to eat dinner at the family table, then TV and bedtime. Then, on weekends, we'd be up early, eating a bowl of cereal and watching Saturday morning cartoons, then out to meet up with our friends for a long day of creating new adventures, and some more great memories, of course.

We all unknowingly took it all for granted, never having any inclination that we'd grow older by the day, month, and year. Graduating from highschool, getting a job, starting a family.

Growing up. The whole time, as we moved on, growing older and hopefully wiser and happier, never having any idea that someday, whether it be a few years from now or decades from now, we would eventually have to face our own mortality.

In my case, it was in the form of a cancer, that invaded my lymphnodes, and moved on to my chest. It's funny - well, ironic, that is - how your own mortality tends to show you just how vulnerable you really are, and at a time when you thought that your life was going pretty well, despite your other recent disappointments - and heartaches.

When the old grim reaper came to visit me - in the form of squamous cell carcinoma - I had just gone through the death my beloved cat, Toby, my best friend friend from gradeschool, Phil, and my mother, who had spent the last two years in a nursing home until she had mercifully passed away in her sleep. My mind, heart, and soul had already been torn asunder, and I was just barely getting back into the swing of things when my body began to betray me in the form of the "Big C.

". .