A Short Walk Home Read Online Free Page A

with each course better than the last. The food was almost good enough to take my mind off of what was still to come.
    When it was time for the final course (Jaymee’s birthday cake) I took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare myself. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw John’s pastry chef Kelly Fields coming around the corner carrying a truly beautiful cake. It was surrounded with flowers and garland. On the very top, crowing the piece, was my family’s third-generation antique engagement ring. Kelly placed the cake on the table; I plucked the ring from the top, and went down on both knees—balance not being my strong suit, one knee would never work.
    “Jaymee, I have waited my entire life for one person. And that person is you. Although we’ve technically only just met, I know that I want to spend every day of the rest of my life showing you just how amazing you are and just how much I love you. Will you marry me?” As I finished, I slipped the ring on her finger.Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked at me, held me close and offered one word.
    “Yes.”
    John clapped and cheered, while everyone in the restaurant rose to their feet and applauded our engagement. It was an incredible night.
    The following day, we attended a fundraising event for The ALD Foundation that somehow transformed into an engagement party. The next morning, as she left to return to Akron, I could not help but picture what the future held. I could not wait for Jaymee and Logan to arrive in Louisiana so that our lives together could truly begin. I was about to go from a single, 37-year-old man to a husband and father, all at once.
    In my mind, things were perfect.

Chapter 3
WISDOM

    “D AVID ? L IGHT A cigar and pour yourself a glass of scotch.” The strong voice of John Hirschbeck, major league umpire and my good friend, filled my ears.
    “Why, John?” I asked, surprised.
    “Because
I’m
out in the barn sipping scotch and smoking a cigar, and you need to be doing the same. To get in the right frame of mind.” Words from a man halfway across the nation, in Ohio (though if he had been in New Orleans, it wouldn’t have changed anything between us). Needless to say, I complied.
    “David, we need to talk about Logan.” John’s voice sounded sure and steady; he was certain about what he wanted to share with me.
    “When Little John was diagnosed and began to get sick, everything stopped for us.” Little John referred to John’s son, who had passed away at a young age 20 years prior, after struggling with ALD. “We tried this and that, everything we could; and no matter what we did, it made no difference.”
    Sitting on the back porch, a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other, and separated by nothing more than distance, John and I soon became immersed in discussing the terrors of ALD.
    “You are never going to be the same.” His tone was flat, andhis words contained no judgment. I was unclear as to whether this was good or bad.
    “Do you mean I’ll forever be a cynic?”
    “Not so much a cynic.” He paused. “You’ll never look at your other child the same. You will cherish the simple, insignificant things far more than the big things. Big things that may or may not occur.” The weight of John’s own experience was evident with every word.
    For his sake and mine, I tried to keep my voice similarly controlled. “John, I really appreciate what you’re saying. Right now I’m just torn. Here I am—the head of an organization that helps families around the globe to fight against this disease, and I couldn’t even help my own
son
.” I said I
tried
to keep control; I didn’t say I succeeded.
    John’s rebuke was kind, but immediate. “Stop. Stop right now and understand something important: from this day forward, there is no right or wrong. There is no, ‘We should have seen this, we could have done that.’ You can’t
do
that to yourself, David. If you do, you’ll live the rest of your life