Hey Reader,

This week, the medical-equipment people came and picked up my oxygen equipment.

I knew it was leaving. I had arranged for it to leave. Somehow, I hadn’t understood how big it would feel when it actually left.

Which requires a little explaining. We usually talk about books here. Today, I have something personal to tell you.

I was diagnosed with cancer a year ago this past week.

I had cancer. Today I don’t.

A few of you have known me since my television news days. Some of you have known me even longer. If you just said, “Wait. WHAT? Cancer? Why did you not tell me this?" I know. It’s weird that you’re finding out in a newsletter.

I kept it private—a tight, tight circle of maybe 20 people. Not everybody needed to see me with prednisone cheeks, no hair, and occasionally making use of a walker. It would have worried you and stressed me that you were worried.

Back to this week. There’s a space where the oxygen equipment used to be, and I’m still understanding what it took for my mom and me to get here. Relief and gratitude, certainly. But describing the past year requires room for feelings that don’t seem to belong together.

Which brings me to Mary Tyler Moore and a man dressed as a giant peanut.

In Chuckles Bites the Dust, an elephant takes an unfortunate interest in Chuckles the Clown’s parade costume. Because for the parade, Chuckles was dressed as Peter Peanut. The elephant, certainly with no malice, tried to eat the peanut. As word spreads to the newsroom, Chuckles' colleagues cannot stop making jokes. Mary is horrified. A man has died. Have some respect!

Then they get to the funeral, and Mary cannot stop laughing.

The minister tells her Chuckles would have wanted laughter. Of course this is when Mary launches into her trademark ugly cry. 😭

The episode has stuck with me since the night it first aired—October 25, 1975. Mary's feelings refuse to cooperate with what she’s “supposed” to feel. And it's absolutely hilarious.

I recognize something of this past year in that episode.

On Christmas Eve, I went to radiation before dawn wearing a Party Animals beanie. I also made my radiation therapists a Radiation Santa.

I was supposed to spend the rest of Christmas Eve morning at chemo, getting my weekly bags of bad guy killers. Weirdly, I was excited about it. But my blood work came back too squirrelly tfor chemo. Instead I got two liters of fluids.

I genuinely cried because I wasn’t getting chemo for Christmas.

There’s a sentence I never expected to write, but it's true.

This past year has been terrible and ridiculous and frightening and funny and full of love. All of those things coexisted—almost every day. I was and am so grateful to have life-saving medical care. It breaks my heart to know not everyone in our country receives the kind of care I continue to receive.

There are things I don’t remember clearly. There are things I remember and only now realize how sick I must have been.

But I remember being loved. People drove me to radiation, brought us food, and oh my goodness at the prayers my mom and I felt. Our friends the Schapers dropped off poems and 3-D printed talismans to keep me company during weekly chemo.

Even when my Buc-ee’s water jug was no kidding too heavy to pick up, there was room to laugh.

Mind you, if there was ever a Holiday Experiences Dot Com, I certainly would not choose or recommend "cancer treatment" as a Christmas getaway. Once is enough.

Getting well has been full of people, too.

At breathing boot camp a couple of days ago—respiratory therapy at Mercy Hospital—my “drill sergeant” was taking my blood pressure when she said, “We’ve come a long way, Tracy.”

Then she corrected herself. She said I had come a long way. I was doing the work.

We were close enough to look each other right in the face, and I said, "Nooooooo. That's not how this has worked."

I was the one who had cancer. But getting through it was we.

I want those people to hear that. The few who knew and kept showing up. And I want the people just finding out to know that I was cared for.

Whew! That’s a lot to feel about an empty space where an oxygen machine used to be, just outside my bedroom door.

I can laugh about some of it and cry about some of it. Sometimes it's the same part.

Mary and Chuckles the Clown would understand.

—Tracy "Mary Tyler Moore Show for life" Winchell

P. S. Next week, we're back to books. Observations from two books, Matterhorn and War is a Racket, written by a retired Marine Corps Major General in 1935. It's a lot to think about. A lot.

If you've ever heard me speak in glowing terms of a guy named Matt, below is the Matt I'm talking about. I've done a lot of freelance work for him and it's so odd—and very cool—that while I do work for him and we've never met, he feels like a forever brother. Check out his work.

Analog Action by Matt Ragland Be more focused and get more done with pen and paper Transform your scattered digital life into focused productivity with the Analog Focus Challenge. I'll show you how a simple notebook can replace endless app-switching and notification chaos. Subscribe​

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