Fifty-One years ago today, I asked myself what I thought was an impossible question

[DFW]

39. Thanks, Mr. E

You might have dodged a major bullet with that handshake, though. My luck with her was indeed pure happenstance, but maybe that’s because I passed on most of my bad karma in a handshake to some unlucky soul early on. Some things we’re just better off not knowing.

It wasn’t always a free ride, either. She has had cancer twice, and even though the second time was a rare form known among German oncologists as “the murderer,” since it is almost always fatal, she was that one in ten thousand to beat it. Her brother had cancer, too. He did not survive it. Both my parents had it, and so did all their siblings. So, with me, it’s not “if,” but “when?” But there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, so we’ll keep on keeping on, and continue to hope that that particular check got lost in the mail.