Nineteen Years

 On New Years Eve, 2002, I was rushed to the ER in an ambulance - with a raging and out of control blood pressure, I had lost vision in my eyes.  I had been sick for quite some time, but had no real idea what was wrong with me.  I'd been diagnosed with so many things in the previous month, most of them being of a mental nature.  It turns out my kidneys were dying, and I was in renal failure.  By the time I got to the ER, they were completely dead and I started kidney dialysis that night.  This changed the entire course of my life, and here I am now - nineteen years later, still alive.  This is kind of a miracle - so many people with ESRD just... die.  Even with dialysis, even with kidney transplants, the life of a person with ESRD is not easy nor normal.  Yet somehow, I have navigated it and been able to live a life.  Some might even say a remarkable life - I know I have looked back at the last 19 years of my life and marveled at some of the things I have done.

My survival has only been able to happen because of the generosity of friends and family.  These people have lifted me up, carried me and made me feel worthy of being alive.  My survival has been the result of an army of people offering up their time, love and care over so many years.  I'll never be able to pay back all I have been given, but I know I try to pay it forward whenever I have the chance.  I think the greatest thing I ever got from losing my kidneys was an absolute tidal wave of love in my life.  I am one of the lucky ones; the fortune in my life has been built with kindness, and generosity, and that is the kind of life I have been happy to live.  I am grateful to be alive to feel the love of my family and my friends, and I am so beyond grateful to be alive to bask in and share in the love with my children.  My Jack and my Josephine are the truest light in my life - they make me laugh and love harder, every day, more than I ever thought I could. Being their father is my greatest joy - and, again, I often think about how I could not be that if it were not for so many people.

So thank you for giving me life and reason to live for nineteen years. People who are close to me, and even those who are strangers who have supported me over the years - I am in your debt, and I mean this is all of my being when I say "I love you."