Please Read This Letter.

And you can listen to the song, "Please Read The Letter", by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I featured it during my staged play reading this past September. Helluva song.

But I want you to read THIS letter. The one that follows. If you prayed and lit candles and sent me your well-wishes and sentiments via phone, text, Facebook or email (or through my brother and parents) while I was convalescing in California after my rudely unannounced retina reattachment surgery, this letter is for you. It's to you. No need to make a FB comment...just please, read this letter.

Dear Family and Friends,

Patience is a virtue. Bad things happen to good people. When it rains it pours (or snows). As thick as carnies (a bit of creative license there). He who laughs first laughs last. Murphy's Law.

Traveling clichés. I left Milwaukee on January 6th bound for Los Angeles to be on set for the filming of a short film adapted from my short play and this trip has been chock full of clichés. Odd...having arrived back in Wisconsin – February 4th – almost a month to the day I left? Am I wiser? A bit. Am I changed man? Somewhat. Did my curmudgeonly, ranting ways suddenly disappear? No. Am I more appreciative of life and family and friendships? Indeed – but I never once took any of that for granted. I’m simply counting my blessings that I have a life, that I have a family and that I have the network of friends I have.

If you look back at previous posts, you’ll get caught up quickly (so I don’t have to spend time rehashing it all). Long story short is that the retina in my only good eye (the right one) detached. I had emergency surgery at the Jules Stein Clinic at UCLA – one of the finest in the world on the second day of my film shoot. I wasn’t cleared to fly until around January 29th or 30th. However, I decided to take the train cross-country on Tuesday, Feb. 1st to appease worried family and friends and satisfy the adventuring writer in me. That train, sadly, was terminated in Albuquerque, New Mexico because of the Blizzard of 2011, which delayed me getting home to Wisconsin by another day and left a shitload of snow in the Midwest. I arrived at Chicago's Union Station exactly one day later than was planned and my train to Sturtevant, WI was delayed an hour. Once aboard, it took 30-45 minutes longer to get to my stop because there were signal issues on the tracks due to ice and snow. Murphy's Law.

Me on the #4 Amtrak out of Los Angeles...somewhere. Heading home.

When your health is compromised (and when your future health is uncertain) and you're recuperating, you've got time to think. And while I was thinking, I rediscovered the power of prayer. I know – how often people suddenly find religion when the shit hits the fan. I didn't find religion. It was simply tested and strengthened as a result of this eye mishap. God’s way of pulling me in closer to the flock? Perhaps. There are no guarantees with surgery. I was lucky and technology has changed in 20 years. The surgery went superbly (I’ve got another two months before I’m declared completely out of harm's way) and a full recovery is expected. I have my 20/20 vision back and no blockage whatsoever.

You can only imagine how shitty those first 8 days after surgery (luckily for you). Head down for 50 minutes every waking hour for 3 days, then head down for 30 minutes for 5 days - and I had to sleep on my stomach. Watch the movie 127 Hours – it gives you an idea of the isolation, anxiety, depression and fear I went throug. I'm a strong person and can take a lot. But I was tested, no doubt. There were some moments when I prayed, "If the end news is bad news, I don't wanna be around to hear about it". I’m not saying my situation was comparable to the protagonist in 127 Hours but...listen, my mother always told me (regarding the medical history with my left eye), “You’re lucky – think about the soldiers coming home from Iraq with missing arms and legs.” I know, Mom – but the crosses we bear have little association or consequence to the crosses other people bear. It’s our cross; our misery; our world. Not theirs. I know - she's trying to make me feel good. I get it.

I want to thank some folk.

My parents, Jim & Dee, and brother, Jason – and my family. I scared the shit out of them. Sorry about that (wasn't MY fault!). Thanks for keeping watch over Casa Ircink in Greendale and all the shoveling you did. I…won’t pay you back for that…because there’s no way we’re getting that much snow again anytime soon. Your love and prayers helped me to want to come back to you.

Doctor McCallen and Doctor Hu and their medical teams for not letting me go blind. Genius. As I was uninsured at the time of the mishap, I’m not totally sure when you’ll get paid – but you will. The shit they can do, eh. Still working on that cancer thing but hey - they can suck out the vitreous fluid inside your eye, inject an air bubble into it and then put a teeny tiny belt buckle around your freakin' blinker. All in two hours.

Tatjana & Miroslav & son Lav & Maria & Donovan and Grace and Goddaughter Gwyneth for being my caregivers from January 12 thru February 1st. What I would have done had this happened in the middle of bumfuck Egypt, I don’t know. I can’t thank you enough and this “mention” hardly seems appropriate. The upside to my convalescing is that I was able to spend extra time with these folk and for that I'm appreciative.

And thanks to Maria’s parents – Harold & Mona – for letting me visit them for a day (I needed to be around “parent-type” folk) and for the rosary to pray with.

Thanks, Jay & Susie, in Pasadena for your friendship (via Donovan and Maria) and the ride to the Glendale train station & lunch. Come to Solstice in Santa Barbara with Jas & I in June...

Thank you to all the well-wishers who kept track of my progress via email, Facebook, phone and text – Megan, Justyna, Joey, Jim K. Jim S., Tom, Sandra, Shannon, Marisa, Kim, Monica, Bruce, Renee, John in Philly, Aunt Ev & Uncle Bob (thanks for the molasses cookies!), Janitt, Uncle Fran & Aunt Mary, Aunt Ruthie, Carole….just a few – too many to mention here. Your words of support and encouragement were rich in sentiment and meant everything to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you didn't make a FB comment and wish me well...hmmm...that's OK. It's just another list for me to keep track of, that's all. ;)

And thanks to Price and Paul for being normal guys on my Amtrak trip. I looked forward to hanging out with them every day and I look forward to staying in touch. Thanks Amtrak for putting us up at the Plaza Hotel in Albuquerque for a night and the $35 for food, and thank you Plaza Hotel for accommodating us. The train trip - now you wanna talk about a train ride from Carnyville? Despite the Asian bride who walked around with her camcorder and plush dolls, the drunk black dude we helped to get kicked off the train in the Arizona desert, the whacky white dude I dubbed “pee guy”, the other whacky white dude who looked like the monkey-faced bad guy in the flick, The Golden Child, and over half the passengers who looked (and acted) as if they had taken advantage of Amtrak’s half-price Ride the Rail winter promotion for the trashiest people who live in your hometown (by the way, that's a big "no thanks" to all those people) – it was an adventure and I’d do it again. I may get a sleeper car and invite some friends to party with though. Maybe some of this will end up in a future play. Or maybe I’ll just block it out. I’ll let you know.

Oh – lastly, thank you, God, for watching over me. I know that enough prayers were said and candles were lit on my behalf so you had to have known your services were needed. I’ve got some unfinished business on this good earth and I owe you. Big time.

Love,
Jeff