A HEALED AND STRONG SERIES — PART 2 OF 3
I told my Wife Barb about it the way I tell her most things—out loud, thinking as I go, not entirely sure where I’m headed yet.
“What if we put my cancer story together into something more than just notes?” I asked.
She looked at me. “What do you mean, like a book?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That’s about as organized as the plan was at that point. But that’s the thing about a question that gets a hold of you—it doesn’t just sit there. It moves. And through the middle of May, it kept moving, kept pulling, kept asking what if one more time, every single time I thought I had an answer.
I hadn’t written anything serious since high school. We’re talking forty-some years ago. So when I started putting things down on paper—really putting them down, not just scratch notes but actual writing—something surprised me.
It felt good. Not good like easy. Good like necessary. Like something that had been sitting heavy in my chest for a long time finally had somewhere to go.
Going back through those raw journal entries from the summer of 2025 turned out to be therapeutic in a way I never expected. But the deeper I dug into those old notes, the more I realized I wasn’t just looking at my past—I was looking at a map that could help someone else navigate their own dark valley.
I’d start thinking, then I’d start talking, and the more I got it out, the more I realized how much was in there that needed to come out.
Then, one night out on the highway, it hit me. Why just a memoir? A memoir sits on a shelf. What if this was a blog? What if I could put this out there in real time, keep adding to it, and let people find it exactly when they needed it most?
I wasn’t doing it for viewership. I was doing it because it matters. Whether ten people read it or ten thousand, if it helps just one person, then it is worth doing.
That’s when I started digging into what it would actually take. I found resources and digital tools I didn’t even know existed. I started understanding what was possible, and that’s when the sheer magnitude of it really hit me.
This didn’t have to be small. This could be something. Not just a place to share my story, but a place to provide the practical answers I couldn’t find when I was in the thick of my own journey.
The blog idea became a website. The website became something bigger. And through all of it, Barb was right there pushing—why not a book? Why not?
Forty-two years together, and she still believes in me more than I believe in myself sometimes. So by the end of May, that was on the table, too.
Memoir.
Blog.
Website.
Book.
Products that could actually help people.
Real, practical things. The kind of resources that would’ve meant the world to me and Barb when we were sitting in the waiting room, holding our breath. One thing just kept leading to another.
Looking back on it now, sitting here with this coffee, I think that’s exactly how it was supposed to go. You don’t build something like this all at once. You just follow the question until it shows you what it’s trying to become.
Nobody Fights Alone
If you’ve got your own “what if” that won’t leave you alone — some idea, some nudge, something you can’t quite explain but can’t shake either — maybe it’s not supposed to make sense yet. Maybe you’re just supposed to follow it and see what it’s trying to become.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13
Read the series:
Part 1: How It Started
Part 2: How It Grew (Current)