T'is indeed a good day.
Twenty-eight years today — one day following the infamous "North American blizzard of 1996," which blanketed NYC in 4 feet of snow — I was terrified beyond measure while getting wheeled away from my parents to the operating room for what was an 8-hour brain surgery to remove a malignant tumor from my brain.
I knew it would be the last time I'd ever see them.
I was thankfully wrong.
I was 21 years old, a college senior at Binghamton University, and, until recently, believed that I was on the path to becoming the next John Williams after ten years of training as a classical, jazz, and contemporary concert pianist and composer. USC Film School awaited despite the fact that the symptoms leading up to the diagnosis had rendered the fine motor coordination in my left hand unusable. After months of misdiagnosis, side effects before surgery and radiation eroded ten years of training, study, and pedagogy.
At 3am the ensuing morning, while in the Neuro ICU, I was visited by a priest to read me my last rites. I managed to rasp out that I was Jewish, so he left. In hindsight, I could have used all the help I could get. Maybe one of those bland tasty crackers?
And yet, here we are in 2024.
What's my secret? I have no secret.
To quote my mentor Dr. Bernie Siegel's book "Love, Medicine, and Miracles," I can only try to reconcile what put Humpty Dumpty together again. Perhaps it's as simple as dumb luck. I am one of the lucky ones.
And the perseverant reinvention never ends as I crest toward 50 years old, deeming myself the luckiest bastard in the world.
While it's always a good time for gratitude and self-reflection, I recently read "The Surrender Experiment" and realized I've been inadvertently practicing this dogma my whole life.
Free will meets chaos theory with a tinge of intentionality thrown into the stew. Compassion, empathy, and forgiveness are a driving force for what I stand for, and I thank my parents, my friends, and my community for that.
Bad things happen to good people, but sometimes good things happen to good people because bad things happen to good people.
"You don't always need a plan. Sometimes, you need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens."
Hug your loved ones extra tight today.
#MZ28