This time of year, during the season of gratitude, I remind myself to look up and live more fully
by Jim Dodson | illustration by Gerry O’Neill
November is the month I take stock of the year’s happenings, the ordinary ups and downs as well as the unexpected challenges and graces that come with being alive and kicking in 2025. This year, however, I’m looking back a bit further.
Two years ago, as my oldest golf buddy, Patrick, and I were setting off on a golf adventure across Southern England to celebrate our mutual 70th birthdays and 60 years of friendship, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Talk about a buzzkill.
Naturally, I was surprised to discover that around a quarter of a million American men develop prostate cancer each year. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been.
My dad, you see, discovered his prostate cancer at age 70. He chose to have his prostate surgically removed and went on to live a productive and happy life for the next decade. My nickname for him was “Opti the Mystic,” owing to the extraordinary faith and unsinkable optimism that carried him to the very end.
A few years later, as I was completing work on my friend Arnold Palmer’s memoir, A Golfer’s Life, the King of Golf was also diagnosed with the disease. Likewise, Arnie had just turned 70. He went straight to the Mayo Clinic and had his prostate removed. He lived a full life, reaching 87 years.
Experts say that most prostate cancers occur in men without a family history, though they concede that there may well be a family gene factor involved. In retrospect, I like to think that I was simply destined to follow the leads of the two men I admired most — a unique medical case of “like father, like son, plus his favorite boyhood sports hero.”
Joking aside, I chose a different treatment path than my dad and Arnie because, as I learned, there have been tremendous medical advances in prostate cancer treatment since their dances with the disease, providing modern patients a much greater chance of living out their natural life expectancy.
Thus, under the direction of an outstanding urologist named Lester Borden and veteran Cone Health oncologist Gary Sherrill, I chose six weeks of targeted radiation therapy followed by 24 months of a relatively new “super drug” my oncologist called “the Cadillac of prostate treatment.”
During the discussions of options, I quipped to Lester (a fellow golfer) that I hoped to publish at least three more books on golf — and shoot my age, the quest of every aging golfer — before I exited the fairways of life. I also assumed that the trip was out of the question.
Lester smiled. “You’ll have three books and maybe more,” he said. “Meanwhile, the best thing you can do now is to go play golf with your buddy in England and have a great time. That’s the best medicine.”
So, off we went. And though it turned out to be the statistically wettest week in recent memory, Patrick and I had a wonderful journey from Southern England’s east coast to west, seeing old friends and playing 18 nine-hole matches through howling winds and sideways rain over seven of Britain’s most revered golf courses. Somehow, amazingly, our roving golf match wound up being tied — in retrospect, it was just what the doctor ordered. My prostate problem hardly entered my mind.
During our last stop, at a historic club called Westward Ho, where we were both overseas members for many years, we had a delightful lunch with our dear friend, Sir Charles Churchill. Then 90, the legend in British golf circles and two-time president of the club reveled in our soggy tales of a golf match nobody won. The real winner, Charles reminded us, was our enduring friendship.
As anyone who makes the cancer journey understands, or quickly discovers, optimism and faith are essential tools in the fight against this merciless disease.
Upon our return, I resolved to spend the rest of my days with more optimism, good humor and a deeper gratitude for the life and work I’ve enjoyed — along with an awakened empathy for others who aren’t as fortunate.
The tools in my kit include a keen (if somewhat private) spiritual life that I exercise every morning when I chat with God under the stars. I also often ask his (or her) advice throughout the day, especially when I’m watching birds at the feeders in the early morning or late afternoon.
One of the surprising gifts from this period was a song I heard by chance — or maybe not? — called “I See the Birds,” by a gifted songwriter named Jon Guerra.
I was stuck in heavy city traffic, late for a lunch date and stewing over the insane way people drive these days, when this incredible song popped up on my music feed.
I see the birds up in the air
I know you feed them
I know you care
So won’t you teach me
How I mean more to you than them
In times of trouble
Be my help again
By the end of the song, I was fighting back tears. It’s from a beautiful album simply titled Jesus that’s based on the Book of Matthew.
That song became the theme of my two-year journey back to health. I still listen to it at least once a day.
I also turned to the timeless wisdom of the old friends who line my library bookshelves.
“Don’t waste your life in doubts and fears,” advised Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite non-golfing heroes. “Spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it.”
With that guidance, the work before me during my cancer journey included the pleasure of publishing my most rewarding book and finishing a landscape garden that I’d worked on for a decade. I also received a new left knee that might someday improve the quality of my golf game.
Best of all, we learned that my daughter, Maggie, is pregnant with a baby girl, due Christmas Eve, which will make me a granddad. Talk about a gift from the universe.
The final touch came last week when oncologist Gary Sherrill provided the good news. “You’re doing great,” he said after an extensive check-up. “No sign of cancer anywhere. You’re good to go.”
A few days later, my friend Lester Borden confirmed this good news, reminding me that there will always be periodic follow-ups to make sure the scourge never returns.
I assured him I could live with that.
On a sweeter note, we also talked about his recent golf trip to Scotland with 11 of his buddies and the pleasures of introducing his son to golf. I pictured Opti the Mystic and the King of Golf, together somewhere on a heavenly golf course, smiling at this news.
In the meantime, I’m doubling down on the things I’ve learned from my unexpected journey.
To judge less and love more. To thank my maker and see the birds up in the air.
Who knows? Maybe someday this budding grandpa may even shoot his age.
This article originally appeared in the November 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.
