I got news this week that a good friend has prostate cancer. He's quick to point out it's not life threatening, but anytime the word "cancer" comes up it's going to cause fear and trembling.

I told him he'll soon be meeting dozens of people who have weathered the same storm. That's what happened to me after my open-heart surgery. All of a sudden you belong to a club that you never knew existed.

I'm sure — in some dry-eyed, analytical way — it seems odd that people go through so much trauma and pay so much money each year just to put off the inevitable. But from personal experience, I've learned it's not just about extending life, it's about changing your life. Almost everyone who is forced to look into the abyss and confront their mortality — to look the beast in the eye — comes away better for it.

It's as if we were all on this rickety bridge above the Grand Canyon. We go back and forth without worry, until something like cancer forces us to look down. And what we see scares the daylights out of us. We see how delicate our situation is and realize just how precious life should be.

The model for that is probably the novel "The Magnificent Obsession," where a playboy has a traumatic moment and becomes a great healer.

St. Ignatius in the Catholic Church went from soldier to saint after a serious injury.

Other examples abound.

For most of us, however, the changes are not quite as dramatic.

But they are there.

Many of us who've looked into the abyss find ourselves a little slower to anger and quicker to help. We don't put things off as much and we tend to say what we feel, especially when it means expressing gratitude. For the most part, these aren't changes that we contemplate and decide to pursue. They just happen. It's as if in grazing the edge of death a little grace rubs off on us. Subconsciously we get a bigger picture and begin to focus on things that matter.

That's not always the case, of course. There will always be souls who slip deeper into bitterness after an encounter with the reaper.

But those who do evolve somehow make all that money and worry spent to cure illness worthwhile.

The payoff for beating prostate cancer isn't getting a healthier prostate, it's getting a healthier heart.

My friend, who is already a decent man, will probably become more decent.

Still, I feel for him. He's about to enter a Spook Alley of the Soul filled with shades, shadows and skeletons. But like all spook alleys, if you keep moving you eventually emerge on the other side and into the light. And the larger heart that awaits you there makes the treacherous little trip seem worth it.

Yes, with fancy operations, rehab and medicine all you really purchase is a stay of execution.

But the richness and bounty that come from doing it almost always bring fresh light into our dimming lives.

e-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com