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As you all know by now, Chris has embarked on a remarkable journey. We are all fortunate to be along for the ride. Deirdre has asked me to write a guest blog for the penultimate day on his cross country bike ride. My name is Don Coughlan and I have been a friend of Chris for the last ten years. We share a lot of the same interests and I hope this admission cannot be used against me in a court of law! We met on a golf course and connected shortly thereafter. We have shared a great many enjoyable experiences with mutual friends and Deirdre and Michelle have only been able to avoid us for so long!<\/p>\n
Chris\u2019 journey is not a lot different than the rest of ours. They all start out pretty much the same. 12-15 hours of labour, delivery, a quick wash up, a spank or two on the ass, and a loud scream\u2014followed by utterings such as \u2018isn\u2019t he\/she cute\u2019 or \u2018isn\u2019t he\/she adorable\u2019. I know it\u2019s a stretch but I have delivered a few babies in my training and that\u2019s pretty much it. Tough to imagine saying those things about Chris now, but, trust me, they probably did.<\/p>\n
We all know the ending and it\u2019s pretty much the same. A few close friends and relatives get together for a \u2018celebration of life\u2019, accompanied by the oft heard utterances \u2018wasn\u2019t he\/she the best\u2019 or \u2018he\/she will be missed\u2019.<\/p>\n
I never quite got that \u2018celebration of life\u2019 thing. Isn\u2019t that what we do when we live? That part of our life between the start and end is our incredible journey. Chris has always got that and that is why his life has been a full and rich one and has added so much to the lives of those around him.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of miles and days left in our journey with Chris. He will kick cancer\u2019s butt and it will soon know that it picked the wrong fight. How can I be so sure? I am a surgical oncologist and a Stage 4D cancer survivor of over 35 years. I\u2019ve seen a lot if these battles and I have a little insight into who generally wins. It\u2019s a no brainer, Chris has this covered.<\/p>\n
I get Chris. We are a lot alike. (Again, some legal advice here would be appreciated. Is this statement admissible?). Our journeys have never been straight, sometimes due to external forces such as illness and the such, but more often because the crooked road and the one less travelled is the one we chose to follow. How we journey alone or together through life is, for the most part, a matter of our own choosing.<\/p>\n
We always have choices. The grassy road or the paved road. Lawrence Park Dinor (no spell check required!) or McDonald\u2019s. The guy on the park bench by himself or the person behind a microphone with several listening. Chris has always got it. In an interesting life and journey those choices are simple ones. If you haven\u2019t had a chance to sit and talk with Chris about his life (sounds like an impossible reality!), you cannot begin to fathom just how much he has enjoyed every up and down, every travel, every friend and everyone in his extended family.<\/p>\n
That is an incredible journey and one I have had the privilege of being a part of for the last ten years. I am so thankful. I\u2019ve got your back brother. You are a beauty and definitely an original and so has your journey across America and through life. Once you are out of that ******* saddle in another day, life and your journey continues. Your friends, family and I cannot wait. I\u2019ll catch you on the corner at the end of the town square, dressed in pink (inside joke). Don\u2019t go straight through or you\u2019ll miss me.<\/p>\n
To you, Deirdre, family, and friends, I\u2019ll see you soon. Let\u2019s enjoy the ride together.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Chris\u2019 journey is not a lot different than the rest of ours. They all start out pretty much the same. 12-15 hours of labour, delivery, a quick wash up, a spank or two on the ass, and a loud scream\u2014followed by utterings such as \u2018isn\u2019t he\/she cute\u2019 or \u2018isn\u2019t he\/she adorable\u2019. I know it\u2019s a stretch but I have delivered a few babies in my training and that\u2019s pretty much it. Tough to imagine saying those things about Chris now, but, trust me, they probably did.<\/p>\n
We all know the ending and it\u2019s pretty much the same. A few close friends and relatives get together for a \u2018celebration of life\u2019, accompanied by the oft heard utterances \u2018wasn\u2019t he\/she the best\u2019 or \u2018he\/she will be missed\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I never quite got that \u2018celebration of life\u2019 thing. Isn\u2019t that what we do when we live? That part of our life between the start and end is our incredible journey. Chris has always got that and that is why his life has been a full and rich one and has added so much to the lives of those around him.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of miles and days left in our journey with Chris. He will kick cancer\u2019s butt and it will soon know that it picked the wrong fight. How can I be so sure? I am a surgical oncologist and a Stage 4D cancer survivor of over 35 years. I\u2019ve seen a lot if these battles and I have a little insight into who generally wins. It\u2019s a no brainer, Chris has this covered.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I get Chris. We are a lot alike. (Again, some legal advice here would be appreciated. Is this statement admissible?). Our journeys have never been straight, sometimes due to external forces such as illness and the such, but more often because the crooked road and the one less travelled is the one we chose to follow. How we journey alone or together through life is, for the most part, a matter of our own choosing.<\/p>\n
We always have choices. The grassy road or the paved road. Lawrence Park Dinor (no spell check required!) or McDonald\u2019s. The guy on the park bench by himself or the person behind a microphone with several listening. Chris has always got it. In an interesting life and journey those choices are simple ones. If you haven\u2019t had a chance to sit and talk with Chris about his life (sounds like an impossible reality!), you cannot begin to fathom just how much he has enjoyed every up and down, every travel, every friend and everyone in his extended family.<\/p>\n
That is an incredible journey and one I have had the privilege of being a part of for the last ten years. I am so thankful. I\u2019ve got your back brother. You are a beauty and definitely an original and so has your journey across America and through life. Once you are out of that ******* saddle in another day, life and your journey continues. Your friends, family and I cannot wait. I\u2019ll catch you on the corner at the end of the town square, dressed in pink (inside joke). Don\u2019t go straight through or you\u2019ll miss me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0To you, Deirdre, family, and friends, I\u2019ll see you soon. Let\u2019s enjoy the ride together.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_post_nav][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”] As you all know by now, Chris has embarked on a remarkable journey. We are all fortunate to be along for the ride. Deirdre has asked me to write a guest blog for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2018-la-boston","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242334,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions\/242334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithedge.com\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}