Tonight is about as emotional as it gets here. I dread this day just as much as I look forward to it. Every summer my intention is to do better. Every night before school starts finds me already missing my son and daughter. This is the twelfth year for me to feel this way. No doubt the strangeness of this summer adds to the emotions. Most people take vacations in summer to break up the monotony of life. My trips all revolved around treatment for cancer. The good thing is between my travels there was plenty of time spent with the kids. Guess I am weird but there never is enough time for that. They say time is precious. One thing this journey is teaching me is how true that really is.

Tomorrow my daughter begins her senior year of high school. No amount of time can prepare a person for that. Her first schooling was in a half day setting. We used to go on Fridays to the local restaurant to eat catfish before class started. There was the supposedly mean second grade teacher that my daughter wrapped around her little finger. We even survived the various science projects along the way. These were not my favorite when in school and they still aren't. I could swear we just started high school. Now we are at the edge of her last year. Soon it will be time for the empty nest for her. I don't think there are enough words to say just how proud her father is of the young woman she is becoming.

My youngest will technically be a high school freshman this year. He will still be in classes to meet his special needs of autism. He tells me that he will be in both middle school and high school. He also does not like to think of himself as "little." Guess no one can blame him since he is almost as big as me. We spend almost every day together during the summer. He and I hit the roads often to do our usual errands. My house will be oddly quiet during the day tomorrow. There is usually quite a racket of games or music going on when he is home. Please understand that the quiet will be welcome. But I will still miss the noise of him being around.

This turned out to be quite the summer. Tomorrow is round four of chemo. Summer refuses to let go of its grip in Texas. This is not the time of the year for the average temperature to be ten degrees above normal. At this point, if our highs were just mid 90s would be a cool spell. Maybe the summer crises are piling up on my emotions. God willing, we beat cancer for awhile. My daughter turns eighteen next Sunday. Dad's little man just keeps growing up. Time really does not stop no matter the situations of life.

Don't let life move along without you. It really is true that making each day count is a huge part of enjoying your days. There has to be something in each day that is worth some degree of celebration. I think part of maturity is finding real reasons to laugh even when all else seems to fall apart. Among my other thoughts is to stop to realize that no day goes without some gift from God. You really do have to learn how to recognize those gifts. Tomorrow my gifts will include having my son and daughter return home after their first day of classes. Another gift will be my time in treatment. My recent turn for the better gives me even more reason to pray for others who may be with me. This year will fly by way too fast. I want to capture the days to save them for future reference. It's who I am. I am a Dad.

Bro. Trey