Bonus Birthday
This past week Bob marked the fourth birthday since his stroke. I call these Bonus Birthdays and for good reason. In Semper Avanti we celebrate his first birthday in a dreary nursing home about ten weeks after he was found in that Virginia hotel room. He can barely talk, he is learning how to feed himself again and is stuck in a wheelchair, paralyzed on his right side. But despite the circumstance and in every way that counts it is the best birthday ever. This birthday, l
The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth
Watching Bob’s determination to participate in our daughter’s move this weekend called to mind Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” speech on July 4, 1939 as he bid farewell to baseball. It was Gehrig’s courage and strength during his battle with ALS that Bob drew on during that first year of his recovery and Bob shared that inspiration in his first public speech just one year after his stroke. Bob's speech is recalled in its entirety in Semper Avanti, and was a key milestone in Bob
