If you’ve been following my series “Hold My Beer,” you know I admire tales of true grit and resilience. Today, I have to share a story that surpasses any stoic feat I’ve come across including my favorite bit of understatement  from Japanese Emperor Hirohito. In August 1945, following Japan’s defeats in every recent battle and the obliteration of two cities with nuclear bombs, he broadcast that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.” Well, Simon Boas, director of Jersey Overseas Aid, recently made a similar, albeit more personal, announcement: his cancer situation has also developed not necessarily to his advantage.

Last September, Simon described his diagnosis of throat cancer, likening his upcoming treatment to a journey to the South Pole. Sadly, although the chemo and radiation did a good job on the tumors in his throat and neck, his lungs are now riddled with the bloody things. The prognosis is not quite “Don’t buy any green bananas,” but it’s pretty close to “Don’t start any long books.”

So, it seems Simon is going to hop the twig, and probably sooner rather than later. But the way he’s handling it is nothing short of inspirational. The huge support and compassion which he and his wife, Aurelie, have received from friends, neighbors, and even total strangers is remarkable. Simon’s job, which he loves, has become a source of comfort. He’s still working every day but often leaves at 3 PM for a pint with someone.

Simon has three thoughts that bring him joy and which he shared in his recent writing.

First, he takes comfort from the thought that he’s had a really good – almost charmed – life. Simon has dined with lords and billionaires, and broken bread with the poorest people on earth. He has accomplished prodigious feats of drinking and allocated and personally delivered at least a hundred million pounds’ worth of overseas aid. He has been a Samaritan and a policeman and got off an attempted-murder charge in Vietnam (trumped up, to extract a bribe) by singing karaoke in a brothel.

He has climbed the Great Pyramid, sailed across the Mediterranean, and chipped chunks of concrete off Checkpoint Charlie. Simon has traveled extensively on five continents, sung in choirs on three, and crossed borders with diplomatic immunity. Most of all, Simon has loved and been loved. He’s cocooned in it; his cup overfloweth.

At 46, Simon has lived far longer than most humans in the 300,000-year history of our species. If the book of his life is shorter than many modern people’s, it doesn’t make it any less of a good read. Length and quality are not correlated in lives any more than they are in novels or films. Enjoy the tiny ways you can make other people a little happier. That’s actually the secret of being happy oneself.

Simon’s second comforting thought is this: Nobody knows whether there’s a God or an afterlife, but it seems unlikely to him that our existence is merely a brief and random flash of consciousness between two eternities of nothing. A benevolent creator strikes him as no more far-fetched than the latest efforts of physics to make sense of our world. Our almost-instinct may well be almost true: What will survive of us is love.

Finally, the thought Simon keeps coming back to is how lucky it is to have lived at all. To exist is to have won the lottery. There are so many bits of extraordinarily unlikely good luck that have occurred just for us to be born, that it’s like hitting the jackpot every day of the year.

Life is inordinately precious, unlikely, and beautiful. You are exquisite. When you say – as you do, 20 times a day – “I’m fine,” realize that you don’t just mean “I’m adequate.” You are FINE. Refined. Unique. Finely crafted; fine dining; fine china! You really are fine in that sense too. We say it all the time, but unknowingly we speak the truth.

We should be dazzled by our good fortune – dancing on the tables every day. Simon Boas’s courage in facing death with such grace and calm is a testament to the human spirit. Here’s to you, Simon. I will hold your beer