Good Progress

On Christmas Cards, Scans, and Path Ahead

Dear Friends —

Let’s pause for a moment and savor how lovely you all look in your Christmas cards this year. How did I end up with such good looking friends? So many of your cute kiddos are now tall and handsome, and why on earth aren’t all of them modeling professionally? Well done raising the next generation, all of whom appear to be above average in all the best ways.

But if there’s anything more endearing than your exquisite photos, it’s the sweet notes recapping the year, or the hopeful hopes for 2023. I read them all. I’m a reader! There was a time when I sent out a fabulous Christmas letter too, but these days I send postcards on a blog instead. It all works out.

As I’ve been reading through this year’s stack of cards, I remembered a Christmas letter I received probably 18 years ago. But get this — I only remember two words from the letter. I don’t even remember who it was from! This is terrible, but stick with me here.

This letter was written by a woman — I’m sure at one point I knew her well enough to be on her Christmas card list — who included a lively overview of her family’s year. Tucked into a third or fourth paragraph, she recounted how she and her husband spent part of their spring visiting their college son, who was spending a semester in Vienna. While there, she noted, they were able to hear him perform (did he play the violin, or the French horn? I have no idea) at a small concert. She described their time savoring her son’s playing as “a chance to hear his good progress.”

Good progress. I read those words over and over as I glanced at their family’s attractive photo, and savored how simply, how gracefully, she captured a mother’s heart. It struck me then — and even more so now — that this simple declaration was just the right balance of encouragement and affirmation, tempered with a grander aspiration for her son to reach ever farther with his instrument. Good progress says “You’re on your way. How delightful to bear witness to where you are, and where you’re headed.” Good progress says there’s more work to be done. Good progress says the work will be worth it.

Good progress, I’m happy to report, also neatly sums up my scan from recent days. Nearly all the itty bitties in my lung are smaller, which means Foxy is doing her hard and important work.

My December lung scan. I know. I can barely sort out what’s an itty bitty, and what’s meant to be there, either. But I’ve been assured the itty bitties are smaller.

But my scan also came with a longer set of conversations with my oncology team about how much more Foxy I can tolerate, and at what kind of pace. There are hints that Foxy is taking a harder toll this time around, so we want to be careful as we continue to maximize this miracle set of chemicals in a way that doesn’t cause unnecessary harm. For the weeks ahead, good progress means “Continue. Continue slowly, and carefully.” And so I will.

But not until January. For these remaining December days, I’m fortunate to be home with Connor and Lucy, who have reached the end of their full and exhausting semesters. And like my Christmas card author from 18 years ago, I have seen — marveled, really — at their good progress in recent weeks. Connor plays his trumpet now with this elegant confidence, as if he’s known forever that hitting that high E note was always within his grasp. Lucy’s dancing is a wonder. Her arms extend in a way that joyfully invites everyone in the audience to pay attention to each step, turn, twirl, and twist. If there’s anything higher than Connor’s high E note, it’s Lucy kicks.

In it all, Christmas draws ever closer. A day that reminds us better than any other day of the year that all of us — our delightful, ridiculously flawed, and as good-looking as our Christmas card selves — are so deeply loved.

Loved so much that our Maker saw our good progress, and set in motion a new story. One that would enable everlasting goodness. Everlasting progress.

May all of our good progress result in an ever more peaceful 2023.

xoxo