We just got back from Missouri/Michigan. I dropped my children off with their mother again for the summer.

I am not happy about this.

Within 9 hours of their arrival the diet I have had them on for 6 months (gluten-free and dairy free, a requirement for their body chemistry) was blown with a Little Caesar's hot and ready. There was a year leading up to this where she knew what she would have to do, and knew how she was going to have to shop, and it lasted 9 hours.

This is only one example, but it is indicative of how responsible she is. As it is, I have called her 5 times over the last 36 hours to talk to my children, no answer and no callback.

But enough of my woes, I don't want to think about them anyway. On to other people's woes.

I saw a documentary a few years ago about a class action suit. The plaintiffs were a group of people who had all developed cancerous tumors coincidentally living close to power lines. It was one of the famed cancer cluster cases.

Now as a Republican, my company line must be to support power and industry companies. However, I am also a huge science buff, and I TOTALLY believe in cancer clusters. There is just too much that we do not know about electromagnetism and the effect that it has on our bodies. If you want proof, find someone who lives really close to a set of large, pulsing power lines. Turn on a computer in their house within about 150 feet of those lines. Take a look at the picture on the monitor. It will take you about 2 seconds to see the waves and distortion that are rippling through the pixels trying like Hell to resolve into a clear image. This have nothing to do with the power coming through the lines, as it is still present when the machine is on a battery backup. These are the electromagnetic waves traveling through the air. If it is enough to distort the image on a computer screen, what is it doing to the neurons and electrical impulses firing through your brain? What if that is constant?

Anyway, this documentary centered around the folks who lived there and showed the ill effects, and the lawyer that took their case. A case that he was certain to lose, with a group of plaintiffs that could not pay him very much. He prosecuted that case as far as he was able not to win, but to create as much public awareness as he could. To get the story out. To get this subject talked about in more than just a paranoid Internet chat room.

They lost, but they expected to. But that is not why I am writing about this. It's the last scene of this documentary. The plaintiffs got together along with their lawyer for a dinner. The lawyer was dejected. He felt as though he let these people down and failed them miserably. He was surprised as he could be when he showed up and these folks were laughing and giggling like it was Christmas morning. Several of them said thing to the lawyer like, "Why so glum? We really gave them a run, didn't we?" And then someone else jokingly said, "Let him alone, after all, he's going to have to live with this a lot longer than we will!" Lotta laughter at that one.

There is something that happens to you when you come face to face with your own mortality. I've got some experience with this; now what I have is not as aggressive or as debilitating as cancer. The pain I have is related to the symptoms, not to the disease. And when I finally take a dirt nap I'll have lived a good deal longer than most people diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. But the experience of knowing, sitting there in the exam room and hearing the doctor tell you...

All of the stages are true. Denial, anger, acceptance.... But something happens to you afterwords. Something unique. Your priorities, your outlook, your perspective on everything that happens; it's all changed. The mere fact that you are ever able to laugh again is something that most people cannot believe. And if you stop and think about it yourself, maybe it IS a little amazing that you can still find life amusing. That you can look past your own pain, your own situation, your own death. Once it is no longer an uncertainty, once you know 'round about when and where it will happen, nearly everything else in life becomes more real. You stop worrying about the things that make other people sweat. And the only thing that annoys you anymore is stupidity. But every hug you share with your kids, every smile with your wife, every perfectly cooked steak, every ice cold beer, and every time the Red Wings win becomes a whole lot more.

I think my priorities are straight, but not a whole lot of others would agree. After I found out about having Marphans syndrome I asked the doctor if it meant I would have to have a whole bunch of surgeries, he told me, "The only two things you ever have to do in life is be born and die. You've already done one and the other will take care of itself. Do what you want."

I am sad that I won't see my daughter turn 40, but every day from this day to my last will be a lot richer than most people's.

And that makes me smile.