Last night, I spoke at the Cystic Fibrosis Care Center Retreat in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was extremely honored to be asked to contribute to such an important event. The response I received from the people in the audience during and after the question and answer session following my speech was unlike anything I could have imagined. This experience has signaled to me that I need to do more to share my story and do whatever I can to help people with Cystic Fibrosis and their families. That begins now. Here is the full text of the speech I gave. A link to a video of me giving the speech should be available in the coming days and will be posted here as soon as possible.
Student, Teacher, Husband,
Father: My CF Journey
by Evin Green
When I was told that during this 30-minute
speech, Donna and Dr. Simon would essentially like me to tell you my life story, I realized
I would have to make certain that I included the most interesting thing about
my life thus far. The hard part
would be determining what that is.
Is it the fact that when I got my first job as a high school English
teacher, I was only two years older than some of the seniors in one of my
classes? Is it the anecdote about
how my wife and I actually met in Preschool, and before falling in love during
our first year of college, we dated each other’s best friend in high
school? Or could it be my reign as
Pumpkin Prince, when for two years in a row I grew (along with the help of my
Grandpa Mooney) the largest pumpkin in Tuscola County? But then, I realized all of those
tidbits ignore one key thing: you,
the audience. This is not the
first time I’ve spoken publicly about my life with Cystic Fibrosis, but it is
the first time I’ve ever spoken to a group that is so knowledgeable about the
disease. Virtually everyone in
this room knows what it’s like to make sure you have enough Pulmozyme and a
large enough cooler before leaving on a week-long vacation. You have all asked the question, “Did you
take your enzymes?” Each of you
has listened to someone you love coughing in another room and wished that you
could somehow spare them from needing pills, inhalers, or IVs to remain
healthy. So when I considered why
I was asked to speak here tonight and
what the most interesting thing about my life is to you, it’s this: that
you have every reason to believe that your daughter, or your husband, your
wife, or your son, will have a life that’s just as ordinary, just as remarkable,
and just as ripe with opportunity as mine has been.
My CF journey began partly because
of television. I was the first
born in my family, and when a public service announcement declared it was Kiss
Your Baby Week in the early months of 1983, my mom, along with thousands of other
new mothers, did just that. Since
she and my dad disagreed on just how salty their 3 month old tasted, a few more
relatives were brought into the fold, and the consensus was, yes, something was
amiss. Not long after, my parents
took me to the doctor because of a respiratory infection, and I was later
admitted to the hospital, where my mom told the doctors about my savory
forehead flavor. When the test
came back suggesting I did have CF, I was transferred to Detroit Children’s
hospital. After about seven days
there, I was discharged with a formal diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis, and once
home, my mom and dad began all of the requisite treatments: Pre-digested formula and eventually
enzymes in the applesauce, along with percussive and postural drainage four
times a day; basically everything that was available in 1983.
I have never known an existence
without CF, but I have very few memories of the illness impacting my life in my
elementary school days, apart from going to the office to take my enzymes before
lunch every day. I also do not
recall when I began doing inhaled medicines, but I was around 11 years old when
Pulmozyme was approved and the hum of a nebulizer graced my home at least once
each day from that point forward. I think the fact that I have so few memories about having CF
as a child it is a testament to how my parents normalized the realities of
being a kid with chronic illness.
Having CF wasn’t a secret, or something that made me brave, it just
“was.”
The earliest example of have of how
I processed being a kid with CF is in the form of a book I wrote for a class
assignment in 2nd grade called “I’m short and have CF.” Both of
which are still true, as you can see.
It is filled with what I now recognize as misinformation about the disease. My lung collapsed when I was born, and
at age eight, I believed that was why I had Cystic Fibrosis. I also focused on my height, which I
completely blamed on CF, not realizing it was
in fact my genes that made me short, just not the mutation on my delta
F508.
Two years later the book I wrote
for school focused on CF Camp.
Some of you out there might be familiar with Onkoi Benek… * do Beaver Gesture * Where are my beavers at?
Though we are now far more aware of the risks of CFers eating, playing,
and bunking together, the importance of having a social bond with adults and
kids who knew exactly what my life was really like cannot be understated. CF was something I was always willing
to talk about and explain to my friends, but nothing could compare to people
who inherently understood that “my parents pound on me every night” was not a
reason to call Child Protective Services.
And that idea of a familiar bond is why we are here tonight, and why we
are so lucky to have social media and other forums that allow us to be part of
a community without having to be in the same room. I still have letters I received from fellow campers and
staffers, and they remind me of how these relationships gave me a “you are not
alone” confidence, the value of which is immeasurable. One of the staff members, James L.
Myer, a priest and lawyer who some of you may know due to his deep connections
within the local CF community, became a mentor to me and would eventually be a
part of my most important life events.
Another reason that my childhood
memories of CF related situations are sparse is that I was not hospitalized again
until after high school.
Missing school for a check-up once every three months is one thing, but
not facing a missed week of school or a stressful course of IV treatments in
those formative years delayed for me a realization that everyone has, and most
CFers probably have because of their illness: life is not fair.
It is such a trite phrase, but I’d imagine we all have a story that
encapsulates when this truism crystallized for us. Mine was in my senior year, when I tried out for the Varsity
baseball team. I had been playing baseball
with my younger brothers in the back yard since they were old enough to swing a
bat, and had been involved in organized baseball through the Caro Baseball
Federation since I was six years old.
I had always looked forward to playing in high school, since I knew my
solid second base skills and single up the middle hitting abilities meant it
would be highest level I would ever play at. After two years on JV, Varsity tryouts came as the snow
began to melt in 2000. I went and
had a physical done at a local doctor, and was eager to advance to the next
level along with my fellow JV teammates from the previous year. When the coach started the fist tryout
by having us run lap after lap around the gym, I didn’t think much of it, but
knew keeping up with everyone wasn’t possible. I ran at my own pace, coughed quite a few times while I ran,
coughed even more when I was done, and was quite exhausted when it was time to
move on to fielding drills. At the
end of tryouts, we ran a series of sprints, and that went about as well as you
would expect. When I showed up the
next day for the second part of tryouts, the head coach took me aside and said
he couldn’t allow me to continue to participate. My illness, which he admitted he knew very little about, was
too big of a risk. I told him that
I had a physical on file, and I wanted to point out that I could easily handle
running down to first base and waiting there during the next at bat, and the
furthest I’d ever have to run in a game would be from the outfield back to the
dugout, but decided there’d be no way to convince this sixty year old Army vet
that I was anything more than an equipment manager, which is the job he offered
me before telling me to get my gear and call for a ride home. I clearly remember telling my dad the
story though tears in the car as we left.
That was the day that I lost competitive baseball, and the first time I
felt like Cystic Fibrosis had robbed me of something.
Now, life may not be fair, but it
is interesting. Instead of playing
baseball that year, I landed a small role in the school play, something I’d
never really been interested in before.
As I would later go on to minor in Communication & Theater Arts,
teach Drama and Speech, and run an Improv Club at Canton High School, I think
it’s safe to say that I’m happy with how things turned out. I also recognize that my “Life’s Not
Fair because of CF” realization was a pebble compared to the rockslides that
many young CFers face. For so long
I had it so easy and didn’t fully realize it. The biggest CF challenge of my entire childhood was when I
was diagnosed as diabetic right before Halloween of my sophomore year. It added a new daily pill, and
eventually insulin shots multiple times a day. Statistically, about a third of CFers will have to deal with
this aspect of the disease, but hearing statistics certainly didn’t make me
more accepting of this change. I
initially fought hard against having to stick myself with needles every day,
but eventually realized that instead of saying, [exhale / tone]“One more thing” I should lighten my tone and
add “Just” to the front of that sentence.
That approach continued to be the way I dealt with all aspects of CF
from that point forward.
Even though I didn’t use this term
then, because, to be honest, I just made it up for this speech, around that
time I adopted a philosophy of proleptic hedonism. Rather than simply living
for the moment, consciously or unconsciously, all of my decisions were
predicated on doing whatever it took to ensure my future happiness. I first learned
of a CF related life-expectancy statistic when I was in high school preparing
for a speech about the digestive aspects of the disease. The Internet was this new thing the
school had recently gotten, and I got an eyeful about many aspects of CF,
including complications with regards to reproduction. A teenage kid staring at a computer screen in a school
library, feeling waves of confusion and frustration. This is the sort of thing that should only happen when a
student is trying to write an analytic essay on Macbeth, not gaining insight on
defining factors of one’s life. I
couldn’t help but wonder, “Why didn’t anybody tell me this stuff? Well, because I didn’t know to ask the
questions.
But now I knew the answers, and while the circumstances were
less than ideal, that day was the genesis for a basic tenant in how I approach
life—“What can I do right now to make sure I’m happy with how everything turns
out?” Despite the statistics I saw on the screen that day, I didn’t view my own
mortality as being defined by CF. I began operating under the perhaps dark
assumption that anyone, at any time could get hit by a bus, or a falling tree,
or a bus swerving to avoid a falling tree. And like anyone, I didn’t want to have any regrets or feel
like I wasted any time in reaching my goals. I was aided by the fact that, having started school age
four, I was the youngest among my school’s graduating class. In tenth grade, I had decided that I
wanted to teach high school English, so when it came time to apply for college,
I sent all of my information to several universities with good teaching
programs, and was offered three full academic scholarships. I chose Eastern Michigan University for
two primary reasons: it had the
most diverse student population, and it was very close to the University of
Michigan, the hospital to which my doctor at the time, Debbie Todor, was going
to refer me. As a 17 year old, I
had no clue I was making a decision that would pay dividends right up until
this very day.
Starting college was not without its
complications, and the one I was most worried about was making my blindly assigned
roommate comfortable with the idea of living with a guy who coughed a lot and
took a bunch of medicine. I had no
doubt I could manage my care on my own:
Eastern’s fabulous on-campus pharmacy and over a decade of being
responsible for doing my medicine under the watchful eye of my parents were on
my side—but a one in a million coincidence revealed itself when I called my
would-be roommate Chris for the first time. He sounded nice enough, and after some basic chit-chat, I
told him I had Cystic Fibrosis and asked if he’d ever head of it. He had. His younger sister had it and she’d passed away a few years
earlier. I don’t know what I said
after hearing that. Probably all
of the wrong things, because I was completely flabbergasted. Ultimately, Chris and I never became
close, and I always wondered if it was because I represented a life that his
sister never got to have, or if it was simply due to the fact that he and I
viewed college very differently. At
that point, my girlfriend Kayla, who is now my wife, was at Michigan State, and
my primary concerns were spending time with her and doing well in my classes. After
that first year of college, I proposed to Kayla. We recognized that both of us being 18 made the situation a
little atypical, but we planned for a three-year engagement, which made her
parents and mine more comfortable with the whole thing. After all, knowing each other for 14
years only accounts for so much. Looking
back, we both agree that it’s quite likely that our haste to be a permanent
couple was influenced by me having CF. But at the time, we just knew we were in
love and wanted to be married- it was that simple. She joined me at Eastern that fall because, as luck would
have it, she also wanted to be a teacher, and Eastern would allow us to be
together while still pursuing our educational goals.
Proleptic hedonism drove me to
finish Eastern’s four-year teaching degree within three calendar years, which
was possible because I began taking as many Spring and Summer courses as I could. This is how I came to be employed at Ypsilanti High School
in the fall of 2003 as a 20 year old, teaching one class of seniors who saw me
as a barely older brother. After
three months of teaching English classes while the usual teacher was on an
extended maternity leave, Ypsi High saw fit to keep me on to help write a grant
proposal for a major project they had their sights set on. So, while I added experience to my
resume and earned a steady income, I could also focus the wedding, which in
March of 2004, was a little over two months away. I distinctly recall walking to the Michigan Student Union to
meet with our former classmate and prospective wedding ceremony piano player
when I stopped to cough.
Blood. 21 years, and this
was a first. I was pretty
terrified, but also wanted to press on.
We had so much to prepare for, and I had no time to be sick. Having never been hospitalized prior to
this, I was ignoring a lot of signs that I needed to take care of myself instead
of the wedding plans. I was also
ignorant, because I had never been seriously ill—I genuinely thought the pain
in my torso was from the stress of coughing, so I would put icy hot patches on
my chest and back. It didn’t dawn
on me that there was literally something deeper going on.
I went to the ER at U of M once
Kayla and I realized this was much more serious than we’d hoped. In addition to me being new at this, Kayla was seeing me deal with a significant
CF exacerbation for the first time.
I was admitted to the hospital but only spent one day on 6C before I was
placed in the ICU on bipap. The pneumonia
in my right lung was severe. As
you can imagine, my family was extremely worried, but we were very lucky to know
someone who had seen situations like this more times than some pulmonologists
have—James L. Myer, or Jimeyer, as he is commonly known. While I was on bipap, my wife remembers
Jimeyer coming to see me to perform the anointing of the sick sacrament, and
basically saying, “What’s all the fuss, this kid is fine.” With our wedding less than a month
away, the comfort he provided was invaluable. 11 years ago this week, after a total of 13 days in the
hospital, I told the discharge nurse that I would never see her again, because
this “me getting hospitalized” business was just a one time thing. This kind of attitude kept us from
worrying, but was also a defense mechanism I used to avoid acknowledging that I
nearly lost my wedding day to Cystic Fibrosis.
I returned home on oxygen, but was
soon weaned from that and was able to return to work. Things settled back down just in time for the wedding, and
though my tux was a little oversized as a result of typical in-patient weight
loss, on May 22nd, 2004, there was otherwise no sign of the fact
that just a few weeks before I had been given Last Rights by Jimeyer, who married
Kayla and I that day. In a way I
am very grateful that I got so ill prior to the wedding, because I don’t think
a person marrying someone with Cystic Fibrosis typically does so without fully
confronting the realities of the disease, and had I not gotten so sick, that
could have easily been the case.
When Kayla said, “In sickness and in health…” that day, she, for the
most part, fully understood what that entailed. We didn’t know exactly the hows or whats or whens, but we
understood a mutual commitment to making our lives wonderful regardless of what
health issues came my way would be crucial to a successful marriage.
Being hired at Canton High School
three months after our wedding was a dream come true. Most teachers would do anything to step into a position like
the one I did, and for me it was especially poetic that I was a tenth grader in
high school when I decided I wanted to teach English, and now my job was
primarily teaching American Literature to sophomores. I was told I was the youngest teacher anyone could remember
the district hiring, but at least now I had five years on the 16 year olds
sitting in the rows in front of me.
I carved my niche as the teacher who educates with humor and passion,
one who is just as likely to dress up in a costume as he is to lead a serious
discussion about racial equity. I
strove to make sure that my health issues did not define me, but I did address
them with each class at the start of the year. I told them first about being diabetic, and explained that
if I was lying on the floor when they walked in one day, that was not me
creating an elaborate and engaging lesson- that was me desperately needing
sugar. Of course, this never
happened, but I found it helpful to humorously describe the most dramatic
situation possible to simultaneously portray the seriousness of the issue
without freaking the kids out. I
would then tell them about Cystic Fibrosis, which many kids had heard of thanks
to biology class. When it came to
explaining CF, my main goal was students understanding that although I may sound like someone who has the flu and
needs to go home, my coughing was normal and they weren’t at any risk of
catching something from me. I
described my lungs as “the party house”-- that home in the neighborhood where the parents don’t pay
much attention and stuff happens there that really shouldn’t be happening in a
place where kids are. Based on the
knowing glances I received, it was an effective metaphor. With those two issues covered, I could
go about the business of teaching, and that’s what I did for nine and a half
years.
At the start of my fourth year, I
was, for the first time, both a teacher and a father. My son was born in August of 2008, and it was at that time
that my life took on new meaning.
Particularly because, as is typical with people with Cystic Fibrosis,
having our son took considerably more planning and effort than did the
conception of my wife and some of the other happy accidents in this room. I had been aware of my desire to be a
dad for a long time, but after learning about the issues CFers face with
reproduction, I had long ago accepted that my students may have to be my
surrogate children, and I told myself I could live with that. But, having Henry six years ago made me
see that even more than being a teacher, being a father to him is the reason I
live and breathe each day.
As he got older, I got sicker. Such is the nature of chronic illness,
and despite phenomenal care from Dr. Simon, my exacerbations were more frequent
and I was less able to bounce back from them. While my son was still young enough that my illness didn’t
impact how he saw me as a parent, I recognized such a day would likely
come. I made every effort to keep
my health from affecting my role as a husband, teacher, and father. Teaching posed the most obvious
challenges, but I refused to miss time from the classroom unless it was
absolutely necessary. On several
occasions, I did IV medication during my lunches at school. This did not seem extreme to me; I
wouldn’t put my ultimate well-being above my career, but I also wouldn’t be at
home if there was any way I could be in the classroom. I later asked some of my colleagues
what they thought of this. One
said that she did worry that my health could be negatively affected by my
decisions, but understood my need to keep working because of my passion for
teaching. Another said that I did
almost too good of a job of making the circumstances seem like no big deal. She found my commitment admirable, but
also worried that I might not be putting myself first. Students weren’t aware of my lunchtime IV drip unless one of
them needed help with an assignment during that time, and I’m sure it just
perpetuated a well known fact: The
words “normal” and “Mr. Green” don’t belong in the same sentence.
The day before Mid-Winter break
2013, I knew I was sick. I could
tell I needed to go on antibiotics and I figured the week off would be just
what I needed to be back to my usual self. I was oh so wrong.
I was in the hospital that Sunday, on IVs and fighting off pneumonia,
but certain I wouldn’t miss a day of work. I focused on the positive: even though I was on oxygen, at
least I wasn’t in the ICU on bipap like I had been ten years prior. I would be back to my normal self in no
time. Then, near the end of my
stay in the hospital, a doctor who was completely new to me, and I’m assuming,
new to treating CF patients in general, came in the room and told me, and I
quote, “You have terrible lungs.”
This doctor is lucky my wife doesn’t know his address, or his house
would still be getting egged on a weekly basis. Thankfully, this was our only instance of bad bedside manner
that we’ve really ever encountered at U of M. Not long after that, we spoke with Dr. Simon, who confirmed
that my poor lung function was largely due to scarring from years of
infections, and the most recent one had been the tipping point. When he used the phrase “lung
transplant,” it was certainly not the first time I’d heard it, but it was the first time I realized that that
my CF journey was headed in a direction that I had never really expected.
Coming home on IVs and on oxygen
was bittersweet. I wanted to
believe both were temporary, just like they had been when I got sick right
before my wedding. I didn’t want
to confront the fact that needing supplemental oxygen would fundamentally
change how I functioned as a father and as a husband. But the large oxygen concentrator in my home was there for
the long haul. Things I had taken for
granted like showering, taking out the garbage, or playing “hallway hockey”
with my son were now difficult or impossible because of how little stamina I
had, even with the portable oxygen concentrator. Everyone agreed the best option was for me to go on medical
leave for the foreseeable future, and I had to close off the notion that I
would teach again any time soon. At
this point, it would have been easy to retreat inward, and see only what CF had
taken away from me. But our family
mindset was that this was only temporary, and I needed now to focus on feeling
better and getting approved for the lung transplant list by going to the litany
of appointments that are required to verify that one’s body is capable of
handling such an extreme procedure.
My colleagues and former students showered me with support, but nothing
was more crucial than knowing that my immediate and extended family were going
to be with me on this journey.
After three months, I was placed on
the lung transplant waiting list. Something
as monumental and emotional as cleaning out my classroom and seeing that the
mural of Homer Simpson that once graced one of its walls had been painted over
somehow lost its significance when I knew that it could be interrupted by a
phone call saying that a donor match had been found. One of the most crucial elements for me was the mentorship
that I had in preparation for the surgery. Someone I met at CF camp and had remained close to had a
successful lung transplant three years prior, and he and I kept in close
contact as he graciously answered my questions about both the mundane and
strange things that happen when one is on the transplant list. Additionally, Jimeyer has known more
CFers and counseled them though their transplant experiences than he could even
count. These two, along with my family
and medical team at U of M, kept my mind and body right, and were committed to
doing so as long as it took for a donor match to be found.
It
turned out that my wait would be long, and yet sadly, also typical. We made the best of a year where every
holiday, birthday, and vacation was a reminder of how my life had been impacted
by this new status quo, and yet we were grateful for all of those occasions as
well. I scootered all around
Disney World, my wife and I enjoying every magical moment with our son, trying
in those moments not to surrender to the thought that this could be our last
family vacation. As we neared the
one-year mark, no amount of optimism and cheer could override the emerging
truth that I was getting worse even though I was now in the expert care of both
Dr. Simon and Dr. Tammy Ojo, who would become my pulmonologist after the
transplant. I remember getting
used to hauling my portable oxygen backpack and then noticing, as I neared the
one year anniversary of going on the list, that I was starting to need more
oxygen than the portable system could provide. The thought of such limited mobility terrified me, but I
knew that I would be willing to do whatever necessary to be healthy enough to
have the surgery once the call came.
Now, I have a small confession… as
much as we prepared for the transplant and made a plan…we didn’t over-plan. We only skimmed the transplant book, we
finished packing a week before we got the call, we did little to no research
online- and this is not at all like us— We are currently 80% packed for our
Disney trip in June and my wife has read every Disney blog known to mankind. But this was the approach we needed to
survive and thrive during the wait. Even though my health was declining, somehow
my family had never been happier.
We had more time to be together, less stress from work, and we
appreciated all the mundane activities that we had previously pushed
through. Getting new lungs would
save my life, but waiting for the lungs gave my life new meaning. And on August 20th, 2014,
that wait was over.
That morning, the phone rang. Jenny and Cathy were so glad to finally
get a hold of me, as I had not heard my phone ringing during breakfast. I blame the Frosted Flakes. I could sense the elation in her voice
as she told me that a prospective donor match had been found. The rest of that day was a parade of
pokes, prods, preps, and most of all, waiting.
Even as I lie there in the
Operating Room, there was still a potential for a “dry run,” and that the lungs
would not be viable for transplant.
I used humor to remain calm: a phone range in the OR, and I couldn’t
make out what was being said. When
the doctor hung up I asked, “What was that, a wrong number?” My biggest fear was waking up and
finding out that they had not been able to perform the operation. With my favorite music playing over the
speakers, I pushed this concern aside, and drifted off into darkness with an
extremely deep sense of warmth, positivity, and love.
The biggest misconception about a
life saving surgery like this is that the person being operated on is the
heroic one. I didn’t deserve that
title in those first days. All I
did there was lie in a bed and let a machine help me breathe for two days while
I was unconscious. It was my wife
and her sister, along with my mom and dad, who had the difficult job on those
days. First the uncertainty during
the 16 hour surgery, then watching monitors, looking at me with so many tubes
and lines coming out of my body, worrying and waiting for me to wake up and
breathe on my own. And I was
blissfully unaware. When I did
wake up, I was out of bed and walking on the same day, thanks to PTs like Emily,
and realizing that I needed to learn how to breathe again, with the help of
Jason, a seven foot tall respiratory therapist. If you’ve read the latest CF Newsletter, you know the rest
of the story. I’ll be happy to
answer any questions in a moment, but the nuts and bolts of it are that my
recovery was pretty typical, perhaps aside from the hallucinations induced by
the medicine and the migraines. It
was a small price to pay to be able to breathe room air just two weeks after
the surgery, after having been on oxygen for over a year and a half. Before going home, I was well educated
on how to handle my new regimen of daily pills. Cathy and Dr. Ojo assured me that I could call if I needed
anything and that there was no such thing as a silly question. And call them I have!
Today, I am living a life I only
dreamed of. I can no longer wear
Adult Small shirts. Last
Saturday at my nephew’s birthday party, my son’s helium balloon was blown out
of his hand, but I chased it down before it disappeared into the sky
forever. I can literally run like
the wind. I’ve been able to
participate in two fundraisers for Gift of Life Michigan that Canton High School
held in my honor. Starting in June,
I will be teaching half-day summer school there to help gauge what the best
plan is for my professional career.
My wife and I look forward and see a brighter future than either of us
could have reasonably hoped for.
My life has become immeasurably better in every imaginable way because
of my family, myriad doctors and nurses, and the decision of one person whom I
will never meet and never be able to properly thank. In lieu of that, I have begun a “gratitude crusade,” telling
every person I know, and even a few strangers, like the nurse in Washington DC
who was behind me in line waiting for coffee, how much I appreciate them. I have contacted my donor family and
hope that at some future time, I will be able to thank them in person.
One of the novels I taught every
year to sophomores, The Great Gatsby,
famously ends with the quote, “So we beat on, boats against
the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Now, that was never my favorite novel,
and I actually can’t even swim, but inasmuch as all of us are boats in the ocean of life, we each set a bearing toward where
we want to go. However, unlike Jay
Gatsby, those of us in this room are not obsessed with reliving days gone
by. We are focused on adding
tomorrows.
A life with Cystic Fibrosis is not
going to be smooth sailing, but what I’ve learned in my 32 years is that you
are better off not fighting the current.
From the fiercest wave to the smallest ripples, when we roll with what
comes our way, adapt to new challenges, and embrace exciting opportunities, we
get closer to shore. Where that
shore is and what awaits us on it is different for everyone in this room. But what is true for all of you is that
there will be times when the person who is the reason you are here tonight
cannot captain his or her ship alone. In such times, your
strength, your faith, and your encouragement will fill their sails
and be exactly what they need to stay the course.
Thank you.
