What we give is often more meaningful than what we receive. Today, I'm really praying for david bailey (pictured above), a singer songwriter. His life was transformed as a young man in 1996 by sudden onset of a serious brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme), a stage 4 tumor. With the help of the those folks at Duke, he survived, changed his life to devote himself to music and performance (especially in support of cancer survivors). Symptom free for 12 years, he underwent surgery at Duke today for removal of an 8cm cyst. Yikes. He came to my house for breakfast before a Seattle performance many years ago. Kind of a poster boy for the brain tumor patient community. Enjoy his music available at cdbaby.com.
I ran the BRAINTMR listserv for 10 years, a place of great drama and tremendous generosity and giving. Life and death issues. I went to a conference in LA one year (had a blast with my brain-damaged buddies) and I realized that the braintmr members almost always got so much more out of the help that they could give. All enter needy but it's the time that you can help someone else that really makes the difference.
The evening entertainment featured a former member of the Platters singing motown hits. "My Girl", etc. We all just rocked out, dancing like crazy. People in wheelchairs and walkers, people with terrible looking head scars, family members, medical professionals, dancing our hearts out. At one point, the performer stopped and declared "Wow! They told me you was all SICK PEOPLE!" Hee hee we really showed them. Check out braintrust.org especially the Board of Directors.
George Hunter and I organized a small memorial gathering in one of the plazas at the hotel. I remember (the afore mentioned david bailey played). We cadged a candle from a waiter and we sat in a circle and talked about the people we remembered. We passed around the lit candle as we talked. The candle flickered in the dry wind. We managed to light it and George talked about his daughter Stacia, then passed the candle. But the candle went out, we could never quite get it going again. Later we reflected, that HAD to be Stacia's spirit visiting us.
A shoutout to Samantha Scolamiero who has dedicated her life to building the BrainTrust.
My father and Dan Beitel both died from complications from metatasic brain tumors.
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