Pre-obit: Can wait to see what you write

Today's Denver Post seems well packed with ads, belying the demise of newspapers as all and everyone from the blogosphere to the Business Wire seem to constantly predict nowadays.

It's Memorial Day, and, although it would be proper to memorialize a veteran on this day -- my nephew thanked me for being one yesterday, but I corrected him and he, self-correcting himself, pointed out that only my brother and my once brother-in-law had actually put in time in the military when we were still young -- I read in today's Post a sort of memorializing of a cancer patient before her memorializing time.

(You have to read that sentence closely in order to understand its convoluted flow, dear reader, but be patient, I will further explain.)

Bill Johnson, a Post columnist, wrote a piece in today's paper about a woman cancer victim, Kama Winter, who Johnson had written about earlier, and who he was surprised to see still living when he ran into her at a local cafe.

I would guess many people who know me might have the same reaction sometime this year as I also emerge from my battle with the disease to live and write another day.

But I am back! Just like Kama Winter.

Johnson wrote that Winter was still in the three-to-five-year stage of checking back on her cancer so doctors can determine whether she actually has kicked it. I am in the very early stage of the same time frame, and am scheduled to learn on Thursday whether a blood test shows any signs of recurrence. I'll report the results here.

But it was good to hear and read about Winter. I congratulate her as a fellow cancer survivor even if it may be, like me, only for the time being.

Our service to our nation has not been military, as far as I can tell from Bill Johnson's column. Mine has, however, been through several of those supposedly failing print journalism products like the Post, which now, thank goodness, seems quite healthy, judging from Monday's ad count.

Considering how little I was paid during my journalism career, I think my service to the country, although sans any death threat, ought also to be considered at least public service of some sort.

But all that can be for a reporter's piece memorializing me when the time comes.

Have at it all you surviving ink-stained wretches. I'll be interested to see from the other side what you write!