September 11, 2011 8:10 PM

A time to remember!

It's a day to remember all those who lost there lives 10 years ago - the brave firefighters, police officers, and others who raced into the burning towers to save the lives of others. And, of course, all those innocent people who were unfortunate enough to be in the towers or on the airplanes. May God rest their souls and may today provide some additional closure to all of those who suffered the loss of a loved one or acquaintance on that day.

Fortunately for me, I did not suffer a personal loss on that day. But, in a strange turn of events, we went out to dinner with some friends several months beforehand prior to attending a concert and they brought along a coworker who ended up treating us to the dinner. That coworker was on one of the planes!

That day and one other stands out in my life as you remeber exactly what you were doing when you first got the news. The other! The day that President Kennedy was assassinated. It's hard to conceive, but a fair number of people that we know were either not around on that day or were much too young to be aware of the events of the day. I am beginning to feel so old!

Getting back to the more mundane, choir practice started Thursday night. It's nice to get back into a routine once again and to get back to something that I can do as the physical requirements are not too strenuous. I had to give un docenting at the Currier Museum this summer because the photophoresis treatments tend to tire you out and weaken you and I could not undergo much exposure to the sun as well. Hopefully next year will be a different story.

I did find out that I am a member of a rather exclusive club, however. I asked my doctor on Tuesday if he had any idea how many people were walking around with bone marrow transplants. He said that he didn't really know but that 10 to 15 thousand people have a transplant every year. From this he surmised that maybe 100 to 200 thousand people are living with a bone marrow transplant. Not a very large number when you look at the overall population of the world. That's not a lottery one wishes to win! However, I've won the bigger lottery by surviving and having a favorable prognosis for the future. I can't ask for more than that!

Tomorrow it's back to the scleral lens doctor for a visit. Just another stop on the way back to my "new normal".

Life must be lived...

Bob