Fins Up this Christmas

 

"Sometimes living's a struggle, multiplied double but they love it too much for the party to end," sang Jimmy Buffett shortly before he died. 

I can definitely relate. 

Keeping the party going, especially all of the way to end, is a most difficult thing to pull off!

I like thinking that Jimmy did. 

My party's been a sputtering affair. 

Major surgeries and two-and-half       yrs of chemo took their toils on my body and it's harder to party when you can't stand up, are nauseated, focus is hard to maintain and energy is vertically nonexistent. 

So it came time to make a choice: Continue with even more aggressive treatments or quit and party.  

Our Cancer Specialist did not take the news well when we told him. 

"Will you come back and see me?" he asked. "Can I call you."

Breaking up is hard to do. 

To celebrate, Sarah decides we could use extra injections of love in the house, and as a marvelous destruction to cancer, we've been fostering puppies and, oh what a joy it's been!

But the party's never complete without the people you love the most, so in a spontaneous, miraculous, impulsive moment, Sarah makes invitations for the entire family to gather together for Christmas. 

That's never happened since Sarah and I married and threw our families into a blender. 

So this Christmas, all of the kids and grandkids, along with a sister-in-law, a nephew and his girlfriend, are joining Jimmy's holy ghost on the Margaritaville Cruise!

Everyone threw conventuality out of the window to make this happen. 

"Look at it this way," we explained to the kids, "if everything goes well, it's one Hell of a Christmas party and, if I happen to die, everybody's together anyway so burial at Sea will be a breeze."

No one could argue with the logic, or the economics, of putting an equal strain on all parts. 

It's going to be "Ho Ho Ho and a bottle of rum, Santa's run off to the Caribbean" with the whole family!

So my party's not over quite yet and, who knows, there just could be another Christmas miracle or two this year. 

Fins Up and Happy Holidays to all!