The Fortress Was Built Before the Storm

Last December, Peggy was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

People have asked me how she managed to keep teaching through treatment.

I think the more interesting question is what happened during the seventeen years before the diagnosis.

Because that’s when the fortress was built.

Not in an oncology office.

Not after the bad news.

It was built on ordinary Tuesdays.

Meal by meal.

Class by class.

Walk by walk.

One mostly unremarkable day after another.

Neither of us knew there was a storm coming.

That’s the thing about life.

You rarely do.

We tend to think about health when something goes wrong. The blood test comes back. The knee starts hurting. The doctor finds something nobody wanted to find.

Then we scramble.

What should I eat?

What should I take?

What should I do?

I understand. I’ve been there.

Nineteen years ago I was nearly 100 pounds heavier and had type 2 diabetes. I thought I was headed toward a lifetime of medications and declining health.

Instead, I changed the way I lived.

Nothing heroic happened.

I started eating real food.

I started moving.

I started paying attention to what my body was telling me.

Then I kept doing it.

Peggy did too.

For seventeen years.

So when her storm arrived last December, we didn’t suddenly decide it was time to get healthy.

We kept living.

Her doctors treated the cancer.

And Peggy walked into that fight with years of habits already behind her.

I can’t tell you what those habits did or didn’t change about her cancer or her treatment.

Nobody can.

But I can tell you this:

I’d rather enter a storm with the fortress already standing.

And that changes the way I think about what I do today.

Maybe the walk isn’t really about today.

Maybe tonight’s dinner isn’t either.

Maybe getting down on the mat, going to bed, laughing with someone you love, or simply taking care of yourself when nothing appears to be wrong is preparing you for a day you cannot see coming.

That’s not fear.

That’s living.

Because the storm isn’t the time to start building.

The fortress is built before the storm.

For paid subscribers, let’s stay with this a little longer. Because the real question is what we’re quietly building while life is good.