Where I'm Coming From

An End of Year Post Re-Posted Near the Beginning of This Substack

One year ago (December 15, 2023), I suffered a retinal stroke in my right eye. I had no warning. As I tried to read in the evening, as I often do, I realized I couldn't see the page in focus. It was as if I'd looked across a summer sky, leaving an afterimage of the sun in my vision. Only I hadn't done that. It was terrifying. I reported to the emergency room at Lankenau and spent the next several days in the hospital being scanned, poked, and prodded. Turned out I'm as healthy as an ox. My circulatory system is great. My doctors could not tell me what occasioned the stroke.

With this anniversary upon me, I'm thinking about how this event changed me during the past year. In part, it shocked me out of doldrums I'd sailed into years before. It reminded me that waiting for things to happen in life consists principally of waiting, not doing. Maybe it's trite to say, but this stroke was central to spurring me into a more active approach to my life. I'm less tolerant of waiting for things to happen, of being passive. It's amazing how an unexpected event can fundamentally alter us. It's something I try to recall every day so I don't fall into the trap of assuming that habit and routine and keeping one's head down somehow protects a person from life's vicissitudes. If you want to experience life, you have to make things happen.

A year later, I'm a transformed person, less timid and much more eager for experience. People who knew me will still recognize me, but I'm more outgoing now. Maybe I'm even too talkative as I try to make up for lost time, share my interests, and learn what other people have divined from their experiences in the world.

While I was in the hospital, I spoke with an old colleague and mentor, Denny Shupe, who told me of his experiences in the USO, meeting soldiers at Walter Reed after they were wounded in service. They roughly fall into two groups, he said. There are those who cannot get over what they've lost, who fixate on it and what they can no longer do. And there are those who realize that whatever happened to them didn't take them off of the board: They're still here and making moves, doing what they can instead of worrying about what they can't do.

As the year's end approaches and we celebrate family and friends, here's to being on the board still and making moves!

Cheers!