The Autumn Semester begins this week at Ohio State University where I’ll be returning from sabbatical and a summer unlike any other in my life. As many of you know, my wife Cathy was diagnosed with breast cancer and is still going through chemotherapy. She’s gone through the roughest part of her treatment and is doing well in this second phase. I’ve been with her through her treatment and will continue to be there as it continues. I hate to leave her alone on the days I teach, but she assures me she’ll be fine.

We’ve been blessed with some good days lately. In fact, there have been times when our lives have seemed nearly normal. Cathy has more energy, so we’ve been out with friends a time or two, and Cathy has been able to go shopping with me. She’s had to rest less and has resumed some of the household chores. She might even like to get in our pool, but, alas, the days and nights have cooled, making the thought of a dip a chilling one. Oh, well. We celebrate the blessings we have, and we look forward to our next summer which we hope will be a better one.

We have a sign hanging in our living room that says, “Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” Cathy and I have been doing our best to look for the beauty amid the imperfection. We’ve received so many cards, messages, and gifts from friends. We’ve found reasons to laugh. We’ve enjoyed watching the birds and squirrels and rabbits that come to feed on our patio. We’ve taken pleasure from listening to the water moving in our pool. We’ve relished the comfort and the antics of our two orange tabby cats, Stella and Stanley. I’ve even managed to keep writing a bit. My goal was to have a rough draft of a new novel finished by this time. I didn’t quite make it, but I came darned close. I’ve had conversations with a few of our MFA students, even holding what I called an “office hour” in the lobby of The James Cancer Hospital when Cathy was there.

We’ve felt the love from so many of you, and we hope we’ve given as much as we’ve received. Now here we are at the end of summer. This morning, we went out to check on our backyard garden and were pleased to see our fall plantings of lettuce, radishes, and turnips had come up. A garden, of course, is a project built on hope and luck, and that’s what I hope for my students as our time together is set to begin. I hope for their good health and their prosperity. I wish myself luck in saying the right things so I can be helpful in their writers’ journeys. I also hope for their understanding when I fall short of giving them everything they deserve. As you can imagine, any profession is harder when your personal life competes for attention. I give myself to Cathy wholly and without complaint. I hope my students will understand when I’m a little slower than usual in answering their emails or a little less present in the day-to-day life of our program. I promise I’ll do my best not to let them down just as I promise to always be there for Cathy when she needs me.

This will be my 45^th year of teaching. I remember accompanying my mother to her grade school in the heat of August when she was readying her classroom for a new year. I also recall the nights she stayed up late, writing lesson plans, grading tests, and doing this all while caring for me and my father, whose farming accident left him dependent on her for more than he would have typically required. I never heard her utter a word of complaint. I imagine now how weary she must have been, but I know she loved her students, and she loved my father, and she loved me. She taught for over forty years. In retirement, she listened to the bright voices of the little girls passing her house on their way to or from school, and she told me how much she missed teaching whenever she heard them. I’m grateful I’ve inherited her love for teaching just as I’m grateful for the love I feel from Cathy. Here, at the start of a new school year, I wish the best for all of us. May we find much to please us even when things are less than perfect.