Yesterday I did a book signing at the Ronald McDonald House in New York. It’s a wonderful place, and I had a wonderful time.

As a cancer survivor, I was reminded of an experience I had many years ago, immediately following the final surgery that has allowed me to be cancer-free for over 35 years. Part of my recovery program included doing volunteer work at the City of Hope in Southern California.

Naturally, due to my interest in children, I was assigned to the pediatric ward. That’s where I met an amazing doctor who taught me everything I needed to know about death and dying.

It was my observation of a therapy session that the doctor had with a terminally ill child that changed my life forever. I recall the child asking the doctor, “Am I going to die?”

The doctor responded by saying, “Yes. And so am I. So is your mother. So is your father. And so is Joy. Everyone is going to die. Death is a part of life.”

Next the child asked, “When am I going to die?”

Looking straight into the child’s eyes, the doctor said, “I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. That is one of the great mysteries of life. No one knows exactly when someone is going to die. And if anyone tells you they know when you are going to die, they are lying.”

That conversation motivated me to write my book titled, Good Answers to Tough Questions About Death, and to this day the book continues to evoke positive responses from both parents and children.

Taking my cue from the doctor at the City of Hope, I tried to be as honest and accurate as I could with the information that I provided in the book. In the end, that’s the way kids like it. Most of them know when someone is telling them things just to make them feel better, and in the long run, they don’t like it. That’s because kids are just like everyone else. They like to know the truth so they can decide for themselves what they can and cannot do about it.

While it’s true that death and terminal illness are tough subjects, they are not too tough for a child to handle, especially when the child is surrounded by honesty and most of all, love.

A few days ago I went in for my annual mammogram. For anyone who has not had this procedure, it would be difficult to understand how painful it can be. However this wasn’t true for the seven women who shared the waiting room with me.

Everyone was engrossed in the soap opera playing out on the TV monitor when a piercing scream emanated from behind the closed door. All of a sudden, the TV drama wasn’t half as engrossing as whatever was going on in the other room. Some of the women shot each other knowing looks, while others shifted nervously in their chairs.

Five turns later my name was called and I solemnly shuffled toward the nurse who was beckoning me into the inner sanctum. When I arrived, I was instructed to disrobe and put on a hospital gown that opened in the front.

The technician led me to the huge machine that was about to squeeze the living daylights out of one of the tenderest parts of my anatomy. And that’s when I saw the sign. It would have been quite impossible to miss it as it was positioned at eye level directly in front of the machine.

The sign read:

Good Morning.
This is God.
I will be handling all of your problems today.
I won’t need your help.
So relax and have a good day!

I can assure you that nothing would have pleased me more than God appearing in the room at that very moment and standing in for me during my mammogram. But no such luck.

Besides, what good would it have done for God to stand in for me? God didn’t need a mammogram. I did.

I started to think more about the sign.

Why in the world would God get involved in everyone’s problems? Isn’t running the universe enough to keep him or her busy?

I made it through the procedure and started home. I was still thinking about the sign.

When I got home I decided to write my own sign.

Good Morning.
This is God.
Most likely you are going to face some problems today.
But don’t worry. You have within yourself everything you need to resolve any problem that you encounter.
And the good news is this—with every problem you resolve you are going to grow and become a better person.
So relax and have a good day!

In two weeks I’m supposed to return to get the results of my mammogram. When I go back, I’m thinking about bringing my sign with me.

Then again—I just might not. After all, what woman is going to be able to focus on a sign while getting a mammogram?

Smile.

I’ve always liked Walter Cronkite. That’s why I was one of the first people in line to purchase his autobiography shortly after he passed away.

It’s a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading about politics from an evenhanded perspective. There was just one quote that made me wince—even though I am certain that it was not intended to be controversial. In fact, it was almost a throwaway line.

The sentence was intended to set up some astute observations about President Nixon. It read, “Nixon’s social awkwardness, possibly induced by his impoverished childhood, was in sharp contrast to the sophistication of the Kennedys.”

I’ve only lived on the east coast for a few years. However, that has been long enough to encounter the “east coast snobbiness” to which many of my west coast colleagues refer. All too often people of means in this part of the world associate a lack of material means with a lack of breeding and social skills. At the same time they confuse material wealth with sophistication.

I’ve always linked sophistication with knowledge and enlightenment. Consequently the material assets that a person does or does not possess are inconsequential as to whether or not he or she is sophisticated. The dictionary seems to agree with me via its use of words like “knowledgeable” and “advanced” to help define the word.

I’ve met a lot of sophisticated people while living in New York—people who have worked to become educated and enlightened, people who apply everything they’ve learned in wise, meaningful ways. Many of these people have come from “impoverished childhoods.”

The seventy-eight-year-old woman who lives on the third floor of my building is such a person. She was born and raised in our area of Brooklyn years before it became gentrified. And she taught at one of our local schools for many years.

Every time I encounter this woman in the laundry room or at the mailboxes, she always has something profound to say. In fact, after each encounter I usually remark to my children, “I want to be exactly like Lorraine when I grow up.”

In Lorraine’s wildest dreams she would never have hobnobbed with the likes of the sophisticated Kennedys, and as far as I am concerned, that was their loss, not hers.

I’ll be so glad when the human race becomes enlightened enough to distinguish the difference between sophisticated social behavior and true sophistication. I’ll also be glad when all people realize that every childhood, whether impoverished or not, has the potential to produce positive or negative results—depending on how the person who has lived it utilizes it.

Now that would be sophisticated indeed.

My sister is a librarian and has impeccable taste when it comes to evaluating anything with a storyline. So while I was laid up with recent foot surgery, I decided to follow through with her recommendation that I watch the TV show Mad Men. For an entire weekend, I hunkered down on my living room couch and powered through back-to-back episodes from rented DVDs.

Having been a young adult during the era that provides the backdrop for the Mad Men series, I was impressed with the show’s authenticity. The accuracy of the costumes and sets alone are enough to transport one back to the 1960s—a time of heavy smoking, hard drinking, and the endless pursuit of “the good life.”

In fact, the smoking, drinking and partying that is non-stop throughout every episode leads one to wonder how anyone survived that decade. The truth is, people not only survived, they became better because of it.

For example, when one compares the current smoking laws to the fact that people in the 1960s were allowed to smoke nonstop in all public places including airplanes, one can begin to appreciate the never-ending struggle in which humans engage for the purpose of changing and becoming a more enlightened species.

Nothing illustrated this phenomenon better than a Mad Men episode during which the principal family went on a picnic. When the outing was over, the family left its trash strewn all over the place. Thankfully, this would be completely frowned upon today, and the environment is better off because of it.

So, thanks to watching Mad Men, the next time I am tempted to lament, “Things just aren’t what they used to be,” I’m going to remember that things not remaining the same is more often than not something to celebrate rather than something to regret.

Recently the success of a camp that my son conducted in Hawaii prompted him to decide that he was going to remain in Hawaii with his family for several months. The decision came from out of nowhere and had a serious impact on prior commitments that my son had made before moving to Hawaii. One commitment involves my granddaughters being in a family wedding that has been in the making for well over a year. In spite of the fact that thousands of dollars have been spent on airfares, lodging, clothing, and other things related to the wedding, my son was considering whether or not it was absolutely necessary to follow through with his commitment regarding the wedding.

In addition to his belief (shared by many guys) that “weddings are stupid and are a complete waste of time and money,” my son’s wavering was prompted by the enormous financial investment that automatically came with the Hawaii decision. For example, coming to the wedding from Hawaii means that the already-paid-for round-trip tickets from New York to San Diego are worthless and will need to be replaced with round-trip tickets from Hawaii to San Diego.

Even so, I was stunned and upset by what seemed to me to be a self-centered approach to the situation, and I reacted by launching into an uncensored tirade. Of course, I realized immediately the inappropriate nature of my approach and I apologized.

Later, I made a second attempt to express some of my thoughts and feelings in a more sane and rational way. Here is the email that was a result of that effort:

Dear Chris,

Were it not for the amazing progress that you have been making in your continued desire to grow and become a better person, I would not waste a minute writing this email to you. But I honestly believe that, at this point in your life, you are open to positive information that comes to you from a place of genuine love. So here goes.

An early philosopher once postulated that a truly enlightened society would never happen until every person hurts as much as any person who is in pain.

As simple as this concept is regarding love and empathy, it seems to be the hardest concept to integrate into one’s daily life. For years, I’ve tried to figure out why this is true, and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the egocentricity that is necessary for a person’s survival and growth is so extremely powerful, it often overrides anything that might compromise it. This includes the altruistic desire to consider the needs of others and/or the desire to put others first.

Unless the ego can figure out a way to benefit from these altruistic desires, it often resists them and the end result is self-centeredness (aka “selfishness”). Because selfishness is socially unacceptable and might lead to being socially ostracized, the ego figures out myriad ways to mask it, and this is when all of the counterproductive social mind games begin.

While selfishness often produces short-term pleasures, it seldom produces long-term positive results. Indeed, selfishness can turn on a person and eventually destroy him or her. This is a historical reality that has happened over and over again.

Selflessness—the opposite of selfishness—often works in the reverse. When one puts others first, the short-term results might be difficult, but the long-term results are far more rewarding. This is what motivates me on a daily basis to strive to serve others.

It is not enough that as a creative person, my creations serve others. There is the matter of my primary responsibilities—which are first to my family, and then to my friends and co-workers. These people in my immediate sphere of influence are in my life for a specific purpose. And by contributing to their lives, I am fulfilling that purpose.

The things that the people in my life might think are important might not be important to me. And the things these people need from me might not be the things I think they need. But in the end, their decisions about what is important to them and what they need or want is theirs to make—not mine.

On a daily basis, life graciously presents many opportunities to become a better person and live a more meaningful life by putting others first. These opportunities are manifested in part in the requests peoples make. They are also manifested via observations of services that might be needed. When one does not follow through with these requests or observations, the person sells himself or herself short. The same is true of making promises that, for whatever reason, one does not keep.

Because you are my son, you are at the top of the list of names that I review every night before I go to bed. Regarding the people on this list, I always ask myself, “Am I doing all I can to make (the person’s) life better?” And when my answer is, “yes,” no matter what difficulties I am facing at the time, I am enveloped by a sense of peace and joy.

The incredible satisfaction and sense of fulfillment that I experience in those moments before I fall asleep is what I want for you. I long for you to attain that amazing state of being far more than I long for your professional or financial success. This is because I have attained both professional and financial success and, in the end, they have not fed my soul as completely as any successful effort to be of service to others.

Meanwhile, while you have made a lot of huge decisions in the past few weeks, you have many more to make. The current decisions that you are facing are going to be your most difficult decisions by far. This is because your plan to move to Hawaii did not seem to take into consideration what was best for anyone beyond your daughters and you. And while doing what is best for your family is an important achievement, it does not negate your commitments and other obligations to the other people within your immediate sphere of influence.

How you handle the upcoming decisions is going to be crucial to your sincere efforts to maintain your credibility and your reputation as a man whose word is his bond. That said, I have no doubt that you can do it. And to that end, I am rooting for you, my one and only son. In addition I am making myself available to help and support your decisions in any way possible.

Why? Because just as you have begun to grow into the amazing lyrics that you have been creating for decades, you are growing into the man I fondly call, “The Son in Whom I am Well Pleased.” And this is a good thing indeed.

Rest assured that I am here to help as you put together your strategies for the coming months. In fact, I welcome contributing to making the strategies work for everyone’s benefit. The sooner we get started, the better.

Love and hugs!

Mom