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The journey has included cancer, changing plans and more uncertainty than we ever expected. This tattoo marks something equally true: the people, science, places and possibilities that have carried us forward.
As MJ worked through the second sitting of my new tattoo, I kept thinking about how much of my life he was fitting onto one calf.
At first glance, The Journey Continues is a travel tattoo. It includes a golden-age ocean liner, a steam locomotive, a 1940s propeller aircraft, an antique compass, an anchor, rope and waves. I have always loved the class and beauty of old-school travel, and Patty and I have been fortunate to experience a lot of places together. The train, ship and plane represent movement, discovery and the belief that there is still somewhere worth going.
But the most important parts of the tattoo are not obvious unless you know where to look.
Curved along the compass are the coordinates 45.62935° N, 122.66821° W. They mark Providence Academy in Vancouver, Washington, where Patty and I were married. Near the anchor is VII · IV · MCMXC—April 7, 1990—written like a small engraved dedication.
Those details do not announce themselves. Most people will see the travel imagery long before they notice the numbers. I like that. The tattoo is personal without needing to explain everything to everyone. Patty knows what they mean. I know what they mean. They mark the place and moment when our shared journey formally began.
The compass is the heart of the design because that day oriented everything that followed.
There have been more than thirty-six years of marriage, family, work, changes in direction and adventures we never could have predicted when we stood together before the altar in Providence Academy’s beautiful chapel, surrounded by family and friends. There have been road trips, flights and cruises. We bought a tired motel on the Washington coast and tried to build a different kind of life. We later sold it when cancer returned and our plans had to change again. We have spent winters chasing the Palm Springs sun and summers near the lake. Some chapters were chosen. Others arrived without asking.
Cancer has been part of that story since 2017, but I did not want it to become the entire tattoo any more than I want it to become the entire story of our lives.
I chose this moment to create the tattoo because I have now lived for more than a year with no evidence of disease. That is something I am deeply grateful for. It does not mean I am cured. It does not mean treatment is finished, or that the next scan comes with a guarantee. I remain on a clinical trial, and uncertainty remains part of the arrangement.
Still, more than a year NED is real. I do not want caution about tomorrow to keep me from appreciating what is true today.
Thanksgiving can make gratitude sound tidy. Life has not been tidy. I am not grateful that cancer happened, and I do not believe gratitude, attitude or faith gives any of us control over cancer biology. But faith has played a meaningful role in my journey. Faith has helped me live with uncertainty, accept hope and remember that I am not carrying this alone. I remain deeply grateful for the prayers and support I have received through prayer groups—some nearby, others reaching us from around the world.
My current health reflects treatment, research, medical judgment, a clinical trial that happened to fit my cancer, and circumstances that could have unfolded differently. Recognizing that does not diminish faith. It keeps me from turning my experience into a formula for someone else.
That understanding makes me more grateful, not less.
I am grateful for the researchers who kept asking questions long before I needed their answers. I am grateful for the patients who participated in earlier trials, the teams who turned findings into treatment options, and the doctors, nurses, coordinators, technicians and many other people who continue to care for me. Healthcare is complicated and imperfect. It is also filled with people whose knowledge and persistence have given us time we did not know we would have.
I am grateful for our family and friends—not because they always knew exactly what to say, but because they kept caring, checking in and making room for both the difficult news and the good news. Cancer changes more than the person whose name appears on the chart. The people around us have adjusted, worried, waited and celebrated too.
Most of all, I am grateful for Patty.
She has lived every version of this story beside me: the first diagnosis, major surgery, the years when cancer moved farther from the center of our lives, the recurrence, treatment changes, difficult reports and unexpected good news. She has carried her own fear while helping us decide what life could still look like. She has been my caregiver when I needed care, my partner in decisions and my favorite travel companion through all of it.
The coordinates and wedding date are small details in a large tattoo, but they explain the entire piece. The travel did not begin with a train, ship or airplane. It began with us.
I am also grateful that we can still go. Travel is not simply an escape from cancer. For us, it is a way of refusing to put life indefinitely on hold. Every trip is a reminder that active treatment and an active life can exist at the same time. We make plans knowing they may need to change. Then, whenever we can, we go.
And I am grateful for artists like MJ. I brought him a collection of images and meanings that mattered to me. He brought the creative mind and skill to make them belong together. The anchor grounds the piece. The rope connects its chapters. The train moves across land, the ship across water and the plane toward whatever comes next. His work turned a group of symbols into one story I can carry with me.
The tattoo does not say the hard parts are over. It does not promise smooth water, clear tracks or an easy flight. It reminds me who has traveled beside me, what has made the journey possible and how much life Patty and I have still been able to experience.
More than a year with no evidence of disease is worth celebrating. So are the people, the science, the care and the opportunities that helped bring me here.
The journey, indeed, continues.
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