TULSA

Melissa and I will be heading out to Tulsa, Oklahoma this afternoon to begin this clinical trial treatment for her cancer. I am excited because we have been hearing a lot of good things about this treatment and that there has been some measure of success in past clinical trials that involved the same sort of treatment.  A vaccine for cancer...who would have thought of that?

I get to take an entire week off of work, which is good, but sometimes I wish I did not have to take off work.  I care about my job and they are already short on supervisors, so it does not help that I cannot run a shift or department for them.  They have not even expressed discontent toward me though and for that I thank God.  He truly does provide for His children.  


Driving to Tulsa so many times in the past year has burned the route into my mind and it will forever be a memory of my life.  Yes, this trip to Tulsa has become a part of me now.  Every inch of road we drive down.  I can count the McDonald's Restaurants along the way.  I can tell you where to stop to use the restroom and where not to stop to use the restroom.  There are certain things that you do in your life so many times that when you get to a point of remembering those things, you can recall them as if you just did it yesterday.  The trips to Tulsa will be just that.  I remember when I was in Baghdad, riding down the same roads over and over and over again on patrol in the Al Rasheed District.  I can remember the routes like I just left the war yesterday.  Or in California, the trip to and from Richmond everyday.  I drove past the Oakland Coliseum and the Golden Gate Bridge every single day.  All distant things now, but I have taken a part of them with me and tucked them into the recesses of my mind to be pulled up and remembered at will.  This trip to Tulsa is no longer apart from me, but has become a piece of memory for me.  


I do not really know why I wanted to write all of this.  I suppose a part of me realizes, like all other things in life, that nothing lasts forever.  One day, I will not be taking trips to Tulsa anymore.  Melissa will not have cancer or she will die from it, but there will soon be no need to make the trip.  And like all the other things, the trip will be a memory for me to pull up and ponder.