October 2, 2026
I learned…or I thought I learned… the lesson of “false summits” when I was a boy.
It’s a simple one.
Whether on foot or on a bike, never assume the hill on which you find yourself is the last. Never meet that open horizon ahead thinking, no matter how blue and cloudless the sky surrounding it, you have reached the top, the end of your struggle.
You haven’t. More climb awaits you. You just don’t yet see it.
The lesson of the false summit goes like this:
Always expect the ascent is endless and any descent is a tease on the way to a higher climb.
A true summit is a realization only after the fact.
I foolishly thought the activation of the gizmo would be the summit. For months…through many doctor’s visits, tests, CT scans and MRI’s, sleepless nights, two brain surgeries, and weeks of very difficult anticipation… I thought, with the flip of a switch, my struggle would ease, and peace would return.
It has not.
Dr. Nandipati tells me this is not unusual. That my brain is still swollen (Cathy could have told her that), that it takes weeks, sometime months, to adjust the amplitude on the gizmo to match my tapering reliance on yabba dabba so as to allow me to fire off Malaguena on my silent guitar.
I hope this is true.
I had hoped to ride home from the gizmo activation like the little pig in the GEICO commercial.
That day may yet come.
In the meanwhile, I take comfort in my grandkids who look past my difficulty in remaining upright and encourage me that my hair grows fast, a new recliner which offers a glimpse of the sleep I once enjoyed, and the well wishes of you all. (including Cathy’s cousin Kerry who sent me the furry admonition to “BE HEALED” which I have displayed on my desk and brings me a smile each time I see it.).
Thanks for all the kind thoughts and wishes.
