Playing Poker

In early 2005 I was going through challenges with my now ex-wife and one of my 2 stepsons was very sick - he underwent dialysis twice a week. His doctor wanted him doing it more but he couldn't handle it.

His Mom asked me to go to the hospital with him on Fridays so he wouldn't be alone.

I agreed - but I was reluctant. I didn't want to leave work early because I was concerned my boss would hold my leaving early against me later. Plus, I don't like being in hospitals; I think they're depressing.

So I left work at the last minute, barely making it home for the ambulance ride and not knowing what to do with a boy who was thorny, rude, cranky and angry from being tired of his ailment and scared of dying.

At first, I looked at my hospital visit as an opportunity to get some sleep in the visitor's waiting room - his stay was from 5pm until 10pm. Even though I was there, he was by himself most of the time with the nurses and the machines.

Then one morning, he walked past me in our kitchen and said, "Good Morning". He stood there for a moment looking "into space". Then he smiled and walked away.

And everything changed.

It was a nothing moment - except in THAT moment, I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEING HIM!

It felt like he entered me spiritually.

I became very sad. In that moment, I was 10 years old with failed kidneys. I hated the medication and the rides and everyone telling me what to do, what to eat, how to act. I was doing the best I could to deal with my ailment and nobody knew it.

WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?

The moment was fleeting but I remember it like it just happened.

From that point on, I made it my business to be there for him. It was an honor and a pleasure.

I began thinking - what would I want if I were him? Then, I remembered he liked games. He loved video games but you can't take them to a hospital because it may interfere with the equipment. So I taught him a REAL game - Poker.

We had a blast!

He learned quickly. I never LET him win - if he won, he earned it. We talked trash and cheated alot.

Friday night became Poker Night.

Poker Night kept his mind off his pain, worry, fear and anguish.

That was good.

Throughout the year, my stepson had damaged his dialysis entry points. He'd damage them while sleeping or playing or something.

In the summer of 2005 he damaged his last one.

That was not good.

He was immediately placed on an emergency transplant list. He wouldn't live past 3 weeks - tops - without new kidneys.

This happened on a Friday.

The following Tuesday, I got a call from his Mom telling me he was getting his transplant that night. I was and still am a proud member of an MDI Men's Team and I was 15 minutes away from our weekly Team Meeting.

I immediately wanted to go to the hospital but I gave my word to be at the Team Meeting because we give our word to be at Team Meetings.

So, I went to the Team Meeting.

When I got there, I told them what happened. I told them I didn't want to leave the meeting and asked them to come with me to the hospital. I wanted my Team with me.

In 10 minutes, we were driving from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Upper Manhattan.

I was so touched, I cried for half the trip.

We got to the hospital around 9pm and went to the visitors' area. My stepson and the rest of the family were there.

After exchanging pleasantries we played - what else? - Poker!

This 10 year old kid was playing Poker with 5 men he'd never met, talking much trash and winning hand after hand. He fit in so well we let him be in charge.

For about 100 minutes he forgot he was about to have kidney transplant surgery.

We all forgot he was about to have kidney transplant surgery.

At 11:00pm, the Team had to leave.

At 11:15pm, he was summoned to begin preparation for surgery. That's when he remembered he was going into surgery.

10 year olds aren't as good at hiding their feelings as grownups. He looked so sad and scared as they wheeled him away.

8 hours later, the surgery was a success.

He spent another 2 weeks in intensive care to monitor his health. During that time, he was even more thorny, rude, cranky and angry but I didn't care. I just wanted to take care of him.

What I learned is that we can see past others' pain and fears and find the true person underneath - but only when we put ourselves in their shoes. We can't put ourselves in their shoes if we're only thinking about ourselves,

As soon as I stopped thinking about me and began thinking about my stepson, I could Love him without expecting anything in return. As soon as my Men's Team put themselves in my and my stepsons' shoes they made a huge difference.

It seems to me that Love is only Love when I don't want, need or expect anything in return. Love is only Love when it's given away.

Just like a smile, if you see someone without Love, give them some of yours.

Falling in Love

Recently, I fell in Love!

I fell in Love with Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, Eddie Kendricks and Mary Wells.

Again!

I loved them when I was young. They were my idols. I knew all the words to almost all their songs; my sister and I would perform spontaneous duets.

I watched old clips of their live performances on YouTube, singing and performing their greatest hits while in their prime. I saw the world premier of "Stop - In the Name of Love', "Oooh, Baby, Baby" and "Nowhere to Run", among many others, for hours.

Thank God for YouTube.

I had no idea how great they were until I watched those videos. I used to listen to their records while looking at their album covers, imagining I was watching them perform.

As Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell once sang, "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thang, Baby."

What moved me was their Love for what they did and their obvious commitment to excellence. Their performances were stunning!

They were the picture of confidence. They overflowed with charisma. Their vocal quality and technique were beyond reproach.

Smokey owned the room with elegance and care. He owned the camera, the audience, the song, the stage and the Miracles. Diana never stopped smiling. I could hear her smile with every syllable. She played with us and told stories as if she lived them.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn't.

But there was much more to them than even that.

Those performers appeared to be transparent vessels of their craft, a conduit of excellence with no concern for anything other than sharing their Love for what they were doing with us.

They looked like there was no other place they'd rather be. And the more they Loved what they were doing the more we Loved them.

Speaking for myself, I felt like they reached into a higher realm of existence and with their performances, showed me what that higher realm looked, felt and sounded like.

They lifted me up. How could I not Love them for that?

To me, greatness and excellence - in any arena - seem to have a common theme: they exhibit and bring forth the presence of Love.

The athlete, the singer, the writer and the architect Love what they do so much they can't help but constantly raise their standards, caring for what they do the way most of us care for our children - sometimes more.

Their Love for what they do gets all over me and I Love it!

Whenever I have an opportunity to see or experience excellence I'm interested even if I don't know what it's about.

I don't know if philosophers or great thinkers throughout time have expressed what I'm about to say but here's what I think: I think it's impossible to be great at something without Loving it. I think we Love greatness and excellence because of the Love expressed, not because of the greatness or the excellence.

And we want the Love!

The experience of Love is such a relatively rare occurrence in a world permeated with doubt, fear and cynicism. Survival seems to trump Love.

What a shame.

I suggest we trump Survival with Love.

I suggest we look at the Love already surrounding us. Let's look at what others Love and honor them for it. Let's see what we Love and get lost in it. Let's share what we Love with others so they get to experience Love and be inspired to do the same.

It's been said that if you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours. Well, the same can be said about Love: if you see someone who doesn't Love their life, share what you Love about your life with them.

Like a smile, the more Love we give the more Love there is to go around.

You know what "they" say - what goes around, comes around.

What do you want coming back to you?

The Exaltation ofThe Mundane

I was recently on a train going home towards the end of rush hour. The train wasn't so crowded that I had elbows in my back but it was too crowded to expect to get a seat before the train got to my destination.

I stood against a door looking around aimlessly while waiting for my stop.

Suddenly, I noticed a well dressed man with a backpack on, holding onto a pole as he stood.

He also had crutches and stood about 4 feet tall.

Without knowing anything about his background, circumstances or history I had the thought that he may have been born that way. I also imagined he may have been a lawyer or financial person based on his appearance and way of being. He looked well-to-do.

He also looked like he was used to being stared at.

After someone graciously gave him a seat, he was no longer in my line of sight.

So, I went back to aimlessly looking around. I still had a few stops to go before getting off.

Shortly after he sat down, I noticed a man leaning against another train door opposite me. He looked like an Adonis: about 6'2", flat stomach, great hair, casual but well dressed, handsome - the kind of guy women would chase. I guessed he was Spanish but of course, it was pure speculation.

He looked completely bored as he read his magazine.

I think that's why I noticed him. I could feel his boredom from across the train car.

As the train approached the next station, the little man prepared to get off. I found myself looking at both men, first one, then the other, not quite present to the fact that I was doing that or why.

All of a sudden I had a thought: The man with the crutches was the luckiest guy on the train.

He was the luckiest guy on the train because he had the capacity to enjoy everything. He gained that capacity because in his predicament, he could never take anything for granted.

He could look at a great looking, healthy male and appreciate that man's health and looks.

He could appreciate his own financial well being because it made his life so much easier.

He could appreciate his friends because he knows they're true friends - they're not his "friend" because of how he looks or what he can do. They get to know the real person he is.

He had the gift of appreciation.

Of course, I know I made up this entire story in my head. I don't know if any of it is true or not. What I do know is that I'll never know.

And, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that I got something from it: that I have access to blessings in my life just by appreciating the blessings I already have: my health, my intelligence, my relationships and the world around me.

Being in their presence expanded my capacity to be appreciative.

One of my biggest sources of appreciation is Nature. Nature fascinates me.

My latest fascination with Nature these days are Trees. I can't stop asking myself, "How does God make trees? How did God even come up with the idea? Trees are so stationary, yet fully alive. They're so fundamentally different than Humans, Bats, Caterpillars, Whales and Mountains."

Thank God for Trees!

My fascination with Trees has temporarily overshadowed my fascination with Squirrels and Birds.

Squirrels and Birds remind me that God is alive and well and appears to be having a great time. They entertain and amaze me.

Squirrels fascinate me because they move so fast, can eat hanging upside down from a tree and copulate from start to finish before I can walk across a street!

Birds fascinate me because they can fly. They eat all day. They can sit still on a wire for hours. They live in Trees.

Fascinating.

It's been said, "Seek and Ye shall find, Ask and it is given, Knock and the door shall be opened unto you." I understand that to mean whatever we're looking for, we will find. If we're looking for what's wrong we'll find it. If we're looking for what's right we'll find that. If we look for Love and what's Loving, we'll find that too.

So, what are you looking for?

And, what do you keep finding?

One Fine Tuesday Morning

One fine Tuesday morning I woke up tempted to "play hookey" from work.

I went anyway.

I followed my morning routine to the letter: rode a Jersey City bus to the PATH train station and headed for Manhattan. I then got breakfast before going upstairs - a ham and cheese croissant and a vanilla cappuccino, light and sweet.

I got in an empty elevator and pushed the 15th floor button.

Just before the door closed a nice looking woman got on and pressed 14. We smiled at each other and then ignored each other, honoring the Elevator Etiquette Act of 1937.

She got off on 14. The door closed and the elevator rose towards 15.

All of a sudden, there was an explosive wind tunnel in the elevator shaft!

The elevator was swinging from side to side and I thought, "That's weird - it's not bumping up against anything. The walls must be moving - THAT'S NOT GOOD!"

Everything in me screamed, "GET ME OFF THIS ELEVATOR!"

The elevator doors opened on 15. When I stepped out, I saw all 6 elevator doors moving from the wind in their shafts.

At that point, I had some serious concerns. Concerns like, "What the heck was going on?" and "How the $#@% am I supposed to clean up the dust from the sheet rock in the middle of the office?"

I could tell I was the first one in but I still looked around - I could have been wrong.

I wasn't.

I was wondering what to do when I heard footsteps in a nearby staircase and thought, 'That's a good idea!"

So I went into a staircase on the 15th floor of 1 World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 at about 8:50am.

The staircase was crowded and no one was moving; there were only 3 staircases servicing the entire 110 story building.

Of course, the builders couldn't have imagined what happened that day was even possible.

I still hadn't eaten my croissant and cappuccino so when I was instructed to go into the nearest re-entry floor, I sat on someone's desktop and annoyingly had my breakfast. As I was finishing, someone shouted, "Everything is OK - a plane hit the building."

We thought Cessna, not 747.

A few minutes later, another crash occurred and we knew it was time to get out.

It took another 40 minutes before I actually got to the street. As I was approaching Broadway and John Street I turned and then I saw....

The fires.

Until then, I didn't know the impact of what happened. Now I did.

The fires covered 10 flights or more and emitted a tremendous amount of thick black smoke. I knew firemen couldn't get to the fires because it was too high up; there's no "Cherry Picker" or hydrants with enough water pressure to put out fires 80 stories high.

I walked away trying to hide my tears because I knew people were dead in a fire of that magnitude that early in the morning.

As I walked uptown on Broadway past City Hall, I marveled at the clarity of the sky. It was a picture perfect day - not a cloud in the sky.

Other than planes crashing into the Towers, it was a beautiful day.

I visited friends who worked at 75 Varick Street near Canal Street. I needed a place to go because all mass transit stopped and I lived in New Jersey.

As we were talking, someone mentioned that it looked like one of the Towers wasn't there anymore.

That was not possible! They must be mistaken.

I had to check that out so I walked 5 blocks to the Westside Highway. I looked and sure enough, there was only 1 building standing.

Now I was devastated!

I walked back to Varick Street and noticed a strangeness in people's faces that wasn't there before I went to the Westside Highway. Something told me to turn and look - sure enough, the other building collapsed as well.

How could that be? I'd only walked for like 3 minutes!

Around 12 noon the police evacuated the entire area below 14th Street so I walked up Broadway towards a supervisor's home in Midtown. It was at least an hour walk but since no mass transit was running and no taxis available, I took the hike. .

As I approached Astor Place near 8th Street, a question ran across my mind: If what Napoleon Hill (The author of 'Think and Grow Rich') said was true when he stated, "Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit.", then what is the benefit of this disaster?

I got my answer in about 15 minutes.

I walked past Beth Israel Hospital on 16th Street and 1st Avenue and saw a line circling the entire block to 17th Street and 2nd Avenue.

They were giving blood. Spontaneously.

The answer I got was despite the ugliness that just happened, People are Loving. Our first instinct is to help, to save, to make a difference and to care.

I believe the benefit from the Twin Towers disaster is that it brought Humanity closer together. We can't deny our interconnectedness. We're all in this boat together. Our economies, our environments, our health and well being, our communication, our technology, our lifestyles are all merging in such a way that the differences between us are shrinking even as our diversity becomes richer and more beautiful.

As our diversity flourishes and our similarity becomes more and more evident, people will begin to see themselves in others. It's already
happening sporadically.

I believe that in 100 years, people will be walking around experiencing Love at first sight. They'll understand they're seeing another person as
beautiful as they.

That's because Love was there the whole time.

Of course, that's just my opinion, but heck - do you have a better one?
..

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Recently, I was a volunteer at a 3 day Men’s Empowerment course. The course is both conversational and experiential and is intended to introduce Mature Masculinity and Legacy to the participants.

The course delivers - men of all ages grew up last weekend.

Including me.

During one of the exercises, men were invited to share their past.

One man shared about being publicly rejected in a particularly painful manner.

As he shared his story, I became less and less able to hear him. I felt a deep, immediate sadness followed by uncontrollable crying. I couldn’t hold it back.

It took a moment to realize what I was crying about - but when I did, I was shocked.

I was crying over a conversation that happened 29 years ago.

The conversation occurred when I was hanging out with my high school sweetheart, her best friend and her boyfriend. During this particular conversation I said - in an assumptive, matter-of-fact manner, “So when we get married…”

She interrupted me by saying, “Oh, no - I’m not getting married anytime soon!”

WHAT???

I was crushed.

I just assumed we were getting married in a few years.

I looked at her and thought, “We’ve been inseparable for 3 years! We get along great! We love each other! We’ve never even had an argument! What else are we gonna do? If we ain’t getting married, what’s the point in being together?”

I didn’t realize “anytime soon” didn’t mean “never” until years later.

When she said that, I immediately went numb. It happened so quick, I didn’t even know I did that until hearing that man’s story.

We talked about it afterwards but I never recovered.

That conversation and the next 29 years instantly and completely flashed before my eyes while he shared.

I’ve often thought about that moment because - in retrospect - that was the end of the relationship. It took another 18 months for us to completely stop seeing each other but like the Titanic, it was over at the moment of impact.

Neither of us knew that at the time - especially me.

From that point on, I made sure that women were head over heels about me before I made a move because I wasn’t giving my heart over to someone and have it broken again.

Nope, nope, nope!

If I met someone I thought I COULD love, I wouldn’t let myself be caught dead in her vicinity and if she wasn’t working hard to get with me it was never going to happen.

I’ve shared this story with people in my life over the years. I was saddened by it but it was just another sad thing that happened to me. I didn’t feel the pain until he started talking.

It’s a good thing I felt the pain before I knew why I felt it. If the pain had not snuck up on me like that, it may have been buried for another 29 years. I certainly wasn’t looking for it or trying to work on it because again, I didn’t know it was there.

It was bad enough that I didn’t know how deeply that incident hurt me. What was worse was how that incident invisibly controlled my entire life.

I cried because I realized I’d never be happy unless I stopped believing I had to get rid of people before they got rid of me.

I cried because I realized I’d never be successful as long as I settled for less than my highest desires.

I cried because I realized how much I sold myself out to avoid pain - I’d rather be numb than hurt. In the process, I’d never really live - I’d die with my music in me, unplayed.

I don’t know if I ever would’ve released the pain I felt from that conversation if I didn’t give myself over in service to men committed to being the best they can be. I probably would’ve been doing whatever I was doing the last 29 years that kept this pain hidden from my view.

What I do know is that I now have one less obstacle in my way on the path to a life of Love, Success and Happiness.

It’s taken me a long time to Love myself. Some people never do. I know that if I didn’t Love myself I would never have the courage to risk again.

It’s been said that the higher the risk, the greater the reward.

Living scared is not really living.

There’s no Love in Fear.