Nelson’s journal entries are getting shorter, so we’re posting three today. He spends a moment looking back with longing but quickly returns to reality, wanting to continue fighting the cancer.
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November 25, 2022
Been up for some time now. It’s 1:50 am. When sleep is gone, it’s rough, that’s all I can say.
I sit here and try to watch something. The whole of the internet is open before me, but there’s nothing on. I feel like I’ve been beaten by a baseball bat as I hobble around and try to get comfortable. Like I’m not really even human anymore.
Food doesn’t seem attractive. I’m so alone here while the rest of the world sleeps. Doing this occupies my time, so I do it, not that anyone would read it. I don’t care about that.
The Bible brings consolation to some extent, the promises of God, but I don’t know how to activate them to come down to an emotional level.
November 29, 2022
I’m back on the chicken-raising thing again. I wonder if we could pull that off around here. What about the basement and then the back yard once the weather gets nicer? I think it would work, no problem.
It would be so fun, with a little baby boy and a Mama who absolutely loves them. What about when they lay eggs after about a year? How great would that be? Just a few thoughts.
It’s a big fat pain in the butt on the one hand, but most things that are fun are a pain in the butt too—traveling, having kids, most things require some sort of sacrifice to get them going.
Besides, if it’s always “no” to things like raising chickens, then it’s “no” to inconvenience and risk, “no” to messy and crazy, and that’s what makes things fun… within reason.
November 30, 2022
Trying out another dose of those “water pills” so the water in my stomach and legs will drain out a bit. Bill and Brett just left after a long, grueling trip up and back [from Tennessee] with a bunch of flight delays and other issues tossed in.
Funny how I don’t have anything to write down. I read a past journal entry from 2014 when I first went back to Kona in 2014. I was so afraid of what people thought. People want power, but the less you care about it and the harder you work, the more of it you get.
We couldn’t go back there if we tried. I need to stick with this fight, and being close to this clinic is the only way that can happen. No way I could have conceived where I was then or anything. What was Kokua Crew? I didn’t even know back then.
Now I have run the program [right] and have grown to love it a lot. They are, of course, my favorite people on [the YWAM] campus.
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“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” (Isaiah 43:18)