Vernell Howell, my neighbor in Fort Washington, Md., got some good news recently. She had beaten a rare, deadly form of cancer. At age 77, the retired DC public school teacher had a new lease on life. And she was making the most of it.

She’d written a soon-to-be-published book, a compact chronicle of 130 pages about her bout with the disease. She showed me a copy, called “My Miraculous Journey: From Intensive Care to Intensive Living.” I assumed it was meant for sick people, something uplifting for them to read while battling for their own lives.

Turns out, having a near-death experience had reminded her of some important lessons that are too easily forgotten by the healthy. “Time is not promised and waits for no one,” Howell writes.

She had taken that lesson to heart, stopped talking about writing a book — and wrote it.

That resonated with me. Another year has passed, with much of it spent procrastinating. And fuming — complaining about what I can’t change while not changing what I can.

But in her book, Howell emphasizes the things we should focus on. “Build closer and loving relationships with family and friends,” she writes. “If relationships are broken, restore them. Never let circumstances or people change, postpone or cancel family plans.”

That’s a hard thing to do for some. Our work is too important, we say. Taking that extra shift means more money, we argue. But the hard truth is that many of us will go to our graves knowing we disappointed our families for all the wrong reasons.

“I regret not going to see my parents as often as I could have,” Howell told me.

My dad is 94. I know he would like for me to visit more often. Howell says: Do it ­before it’s too late.

Be grateful, not regretful.

Life taught Howell how to focus on the former to avoid the latter. She is the daughter of a Maryland waterman. Her father only had a sixth-grade education but managed to buy a boat and make a living harvesting clams. Her mother had been head cook in a cafeteria at a public school. They wanted “Vee,” as she was called, to go to college. And she did, earning a bachelor’s degree at Hampton Institute, now a university, and a master’s ­degree from Howard.

Her husband, Tom, is from Tuskegee, Ala., and spent 21 years in the Air Force and ­another 26 years as a defense contractor. The couple has two grown children and a home with a boat and pier on the Potomac River.

“Life was good,” she writes of the time before her illness. “And we looked forward to it getting even better.”

Then in 2008, her beautician noticed several small bumps on her scalp. The condition was eventually diagnosed as cancer. But it would take another year for doctors to pinpoint the source: T-cell lymphoma, which affects blood cells in the bone marrow.

“Discovering I had cancer was overwhelming,” she writes. “I just couldn’t ­respond to anything, which felt so odd because I hadn’t experienced any symptoms previously — no fatigue, no weariness, just happy and energetic.”

On many a morning, I would see Vernell and Tom leaving home for a 90-mile round-trip drive to Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. In her book, she describes how he would sit with her at the hospital, read Bible scripture to her, pray with her and cheer her with recollections of their good times together.

They have been married 55 years. “When he said he’d take me ‘in sickness and in health,’ he meant it,” she told me.

Vernell Howell spent years undergoing various cancer treatments. Chemotherapy and radiation had failed. Twice, her body was on the verge of shutting down and she was put on life support. In 2015, a decision was made to try a bone-marrow transplant to cure T-cell lymphoma. Her younger brother, Gregory Powell, stepped up and became the donor.

It worked. Her oncologists at Johns Hopkins received international acclaim for the breakthrough treatment. For Howell, it was, as the book title says, a “miraculous journey.”

A devout member of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., she put faithfulness at the top of her life-lessons list.

“Love the Lord God at all times,” she writes. “He is with us, even in our darkest hour.”

Another one says: “Keep your body in good health and physical condition.” And: “Meet new friends. Encourage and inspire others.” Also: “Keep a positive mind-set, especially during tough times.”

All worth doing. Now. Even if there won’t be much time left for fuming.

© 2018, The Washington Post