I posted the video of Binny’s speech that he gave at the Team Lifeline Pasta Party on his Facebook page, but the sound quality was poor and people asked for copies of the speech. So with Binny’s permission, I am posting it here. I edited it a bit to include some of the lines he ad-libbed (though some I know I missed), but this is all his.
Sometimes you need a lot of strength just to have a celebration. I’m not just talking about the strength to label 250 seating cards and design shirts and shlep boxes. I’m talking about the strength to decide to celebrate even when you sometimes don’t want to.
I went back and forth between absolute calm to abject panic to crushing depression and then back to the warm blanket of denial.
I finally understood the myth of Sisyphus when my son was diagnosed with a brain tumor two years ago. And like the legend, we were faced with a huge mountain, a massive, incomprehensible rock, and a job that no one would ever sign up for.
We alone know that “grueling” reaches a whole new level when it is associated with a ten-hour surgery to extract a brain tumor, and that “waiting,” a word usually associated with boredom, is in fact the most painful word in the English language.
When I was 13, I was kicked in the solar plexus. It was during a karate class in 7th grade and the girl I was sparring with delivered the roundhouse kick a bit stronger and faster than we were supposed to. It knocked… Read More ›