On Monday evening we drove to Ronaldsway Halt along with Skipper. After crossing the railway line and passing through the gate on the river side of the crossing, we headed for the little wooden foot bridge that spans the Silverburn a few yards up river from the railway crossing. We crossed the bridge and I sat on the steps while Barbara and Skipper foraged deep in to the meadow. There was a breeze from the southwest that made the wheat on the meadow side of the river make a sort of fizzing sound. Beneath the bridge the Silverburn tumbled over the stones as it meandered its way to Castletown harbour a couple of miles to the southwest. Every so often Skipper came bouncing through the long grass as if he were checking that I hadn’t moved on without him. He seemed torn between Barbara in the meadow and me sitting on the bridge. A couple of ducks flew over head quacking as they passed, no doubt heading south to my own garden where they would be fed had we been there. They would wait though until we got back. They are well schooled now and when Barbara walks down to feed every evening at around teatime, the sound of our garden gate serves as a feeding bell for over 100 ducks, geese and swans to gather at the feeding station, which is at the bottom of our garden on the Silverburn. From somewhere within the meadow in front of me, a pheasant called out. Behind me a gathering of chaffinches chatted amongst each other. A half mile to my left a heard of cows were munching on the rich pasture. The deep throated moo, the chatter of the chaffinches, the quack of the ducks, the pheasants, the wind blowing through the wheat, the steam train in the distance clattering its way to Port St Mary, and the noise of the water rippling over the stones all sounded as though there was a conductor somewhere up in the sky organizing the whole thing, waving his/her baton and everyone knowing their part and joining in with perfect timing. I sat there on the bridge and I thought to myself, ‘Yes, wasn’t all this worth fighting for’. This is what it has been all about. Cancer was never going to take these things from me. Barbara and Skipper had blended in to the landscape. They were now part of the meadow. The meadow and everything that was now in it was everything to me. It was as though I had just emerged from a dark tunnel, and had now stepped out into a fairytale. But this was no fairytale, what was happening was real. This meadow was not a figment of my imagination. I have fought like a demon, and will continue to fight. Life is worth fighting for, and everything and everyone you love is your reward. I am a soldier fighting against cancer. Some of my allies have fallen fighting the cause. I must fight on, not just for me, but for them as well, and for the folks they have left behind. Good does emerge from cancer though. It teaches you not to take what you have for granted, and more importantly to fight for what you have and to fully appreciate it. When you rise from your sick bed after cancer treatment, the birds sing that much sweeter, the air you breathe is that much purer. The river, the sea, and the meadows I roamed before are now so much more special to me. I wake each morning, and I am grateful. At the end of each day, I sleep easy because I too am now part of that wonderful meadow, and I can see the conductor’s baton clearly now where before it was just a haze. Yes, there are positives, even in cancer. All is well people.

This is Tom Glassey with News at where time does not matter, on the banks of the Silverburn river.