Come on, baby, get the party started.
D. L. Roth ~ Showman, Frontman, Wildman
What difference does a decade make? Last week Friday, my family and I celebrated my birthday. For me, the day still brings with it a somber tone. At my surprise birthday party, it was 9 years ago, thrown by my wife that I was told that, to paraphrase, “I looked like crap.”
Over the years, I have chronicled the event using words and tones ranging from anger and bitterness to those of optimism and hope. If my memory serves me correctly, each was factual but written to capture my feelings about what I was experiencing and what I feared that I eventually would.
This year was different. It was not a day that I wanted to remember or observe; in fact, it was a day that I tried to forget, and with it, many of the dots that peppered the corresponding timeline. But how? Home alone, and with my lovely wife at work, my thoughts of mischief and mayhem quickly turned to feelings of self-pity and isolation.
I decided that I needed a change of scenery but was keenly aware of my invisible teether’s length. Before I knew it, I found myself traveling down a familiar road, one that would, for all practical purposes, only end in one place. But it was not as much the place that I wanted to be; it was a time that I wanted to revisit.
I wanted to reflect on a time when much as asked of me; when the pressures were intense and its taskmasters unrelenting. It was during those few years that I did the unimaginable. With a new baby boy at home and my two girls in middle school, I enrolled in an MBA program at the University of Notre Dame. I was just over 40 years old. It would be a strenuous undertaking even if I were half my age. I thought I needed, to return to the physical place of the time when I was stretched, academically, physically, and emotionally.
It was a beautiful early autumn day, one made for football, but it was Friday, not Saturday. As I walked around campus, taking in the familiar landmarks, the Basilica, the Grotto, and the Golden Dome, memories of accomplishment and camaraderie pushed aside thoughts of self-pity and isolation. It was the I was immersed in a culture that prepared and expected those that entered its halls to achieve much. The list of its alumni or those built upon its legacy reads like a Who’s Who of academia, sports, politics, and entertainment. In academia and civil rights, Father Hesburgh; in sports, Rockne, Montana, Theismann, Holtze, and Perisian. in politics, Condoleeza Rice, Richard Allen, and Judge Napolitano; in entertainment, Regis Filbin. I could go on.
I left that afternoon feeling renewed and energized, but feelings fade quickly and flicker often. I needed so much more than a feeling; I needed to be refreshed and renewed. I needed to be reminded that I was still capable of, and expected to do. I Notre Dame that afternoon willing to accept that my purpose is a work in progress despite the ebb and flow of my feelings. I am still engaged in a battle, one that began on my birthday nine years ago, against a disease that is desperately working to keep me on the sidelines. It is a battle in which I cannot afford to yield an inch if my contribution to the legacy of Notre Dame is worthy and will stand the test of time.
On the drive home, the feelings did what feelings do; they began to yield to the reality from which I was running only this time, those feelings of frailty and fatigue were met with memories of real people, those of whom I was able to encourage and offer my support. I have memories of a time and of actual places that are still standing, that will carry with me a lifetime. To echo the words of Peter, one of my new colleagues who put into perspective my new undertaking, I can’t believe I’m here! Thank you for sharing your sentiments, encapsulated in these five little words, words which kept me from leaving, running back to my comforst zone, that first week of class.
I got more than a feeling from the few hours I spent at Notre Dame; I got part of my story back, my connection to greatness, to charity, and a renewed passion for building on a legacy I was invited to advance and call my own.
That leave me with only one question. Any leftover cake?
Thanks for reading, liking and sharing,
You will have to forgive Ivy. She’s still pouting, she doesn’t understand why I left her home.
Al and his faithful, but ostracized sidekick, Ivy the Wonder Pup.
You lost your insidious mask again, remember?
