The Washington Wizards, 2-9, are not off to a good start. But fans have a choice, they could take the easy way out. Or they can stay with this team and fight. I share my very personal story about why we should always fight.
The Washington Wizards are now 2-9. Not a good start, but also not the end of the world. I mean that in the literal sense.
Basketball is a form of entertainment. It is there for fans and media alike, to distract us from whatever ails us.
For 48 minutes you get a break from whatever is going on in your life—good or bad. It was a distraction for me. I was given two months to live. I didn’t have a rare cancer, I had an ultra-rare cancer, that affects 1 in a million. A cancer that probably no one who is reading this has ever heard of, and only a handful of doctors will ever see.
I was told, that there was no surgeon in the world who could save me.
I didn’t cry, after I was told there was nothing that could be done. Instead, I asked the doctor, “do you know if the Whole Foods nearby, hot bar is open yet”?
Then I ran through the list of my five brothers, and wondered who would miss me? My oldest brother, who’s now a pilot for a major airline? No, he has me on the Do Not Fly List.
Plus, he was overseas at the time fighting numerous wars. He’s an Apache Pilot and also taught others how to fly the Apache. So, I was already living in an undisclosed location, just in case he ever decided to fly by.
Maybe, it was my other brother, we’re just a year apart and very close. So I called him at his home in Massachusetts, and told him of my diagnosis. He told me, “life is too short, I’m going to book a trip to the Bahamas”. True.
At that point, I stopped running down the list.
Anyhow, when I was given the grim prognosis, I went into action, and found the best surgeon in the world, who was fearless.
That was in November 2014. When I returned from the major surgery, because it was extensive, after three months recovery, I went to a Wizards game in 2015. I missed the one in 2014 with the Miami Heat, because I had to hop on a plane to Boston for surgery.
The Boston hospital wrote a story about me. Included in the story, was my attendance at the Wizards game, where the national cameras caught me holding a sign reading, “Never Give Up”, during the 2015 playoffs.
Also, included in the story was my own trip to the Bahamas. I like to free dive and travel to island beaches by myself with no life guards. (Do not do). So I could swim out as far as I want, or dive off boats in the middle of the ocean.
I went out on a not so seaworthy boat in the Bahamas. I went diving for conch, a shark was beneath me. I didn’t scream because what’s the use. I figured if that cancer couldn’t beat me, I wasn’t going to die by a shark.
Life is hard. We all have our own personal stories. But no matter our socioeconomic background, we all have something that we’re going through. Or someone we love is going through their own battle, which makes their battle ours as well.
Let’s stop circling like sharks. (I happen to love sharks). But let’s stop circling. It’s so easy, when things are going wrong to go after easy targets.
Wizards coach Scott Brooks is an easy target. John Wall is another. Of course, there’s President Ernie Grunfeld and owner Ted Leonsis.
No matter what they’re doing wrong or right, it’s being done for our entertainment. For 48 minutes, we forget our troubles.
If you think billionaires and millionaires don’t have problems, you have never walked the halls of cancer, and I hope that you never do.
It doesn’t have to be cancer. It can be a myriad of other problems—seen and unseen.
No matter how rich these people are, they are still people. Misery does not discriminate.
We can continue circling like sharks around the Wizards, and feast off of their misery. Or we can jump in the water with them and fight.
P.S. This past May, my youngest brother graduated from Georgetown with his MBA. I don’t think he would have missed me either, but I was glad that I was still around and didn’t miss this. I finally cried. Thank goodness, it was raining that day.