by Cynthia Wands

This has been a year of gratitude. And revelation. I didn’t get to learn the lessons I’ve been longing for:  a new finished script, a staged reading, a Broadway contract, a full production of one of my works.

Instead I learned humility (being bald from chemo for six months is at the top of the list for this lesson).  I learned compassion – especially from the other people in my life who helped me to learn to live again in a different way.  I learned a lot of other lessons in the mixed bag of nuts in my recovery from cancer this year: how irrational/moody/forgetful and detached I can become. How much I can ask for from friends and family and my husband.  I also got a new (old) cat (Puck: a rescue cat who helped save me from myself this year).

But I also want to say how much I’m grateful to this blog, as this is the only writing I’ve been able to do this year. Thank you.

And here is a story that is very close to my heart.  It starts as a story about a man with a broken neck, but it really resonated with me in some of my life lessons.  Especially those lessons about gratitude.