Jon Talks How To Handle Limited Time: Featuring Wife

I remember going on social media and seeing photographs of my friends going to parties and starting you know new jobs and traveling it really felt like my life was over before it had really begun rare moments of Joy like when an old pal from music camp showed up at her Cancer Ward with his band were overwhelmed by her new reality I'm not sure I did a lot of processing the overwhelm was so great that I was in a state of total shock isolated disoriented and voiceless suleika began to write finding something steadying in her Daily Journal entries it was also an act of imagination um and what I realized in that writing is that really survival is its own kind of creative act my column launched while I was in the bone marrow transplant unit and I remember waking up the next morning and opening my inbox and seeing hundreds of emails from strangers all around the world there's a photograph of me in the transplant unit where I have a vomit bucket under one arm I have my laptop on my knees and I'm crying not because you know I'm about to have a bone marrow transplant but because I've missed a deadline after a traumatic three and a half year ordeal of treatment including that last chance bone marrow transplant that carried a life-threatening risk of heart failure and organ damage suleika beat the odds she was cancer free no longer sick but not exactly well I never felt more lost I couldn't return to the person I'd been pre-diagnosis I was no longer a cancer patient but I had no idea who I was I would have to figure out a way um not to move on because I don't think that's possible but to move forward I found myself returning to this big wooden box that was filled with letters that I'd received from all kinds of people over the years from that chest she chose 22 letters and hit the road with her dog Oscar for a hundred day fifteen thousand mile reset ritual meeting strangers she felt had something to teach her about healing the title of the book is a reference to the brilliant Susan Sontag who talks about how we all have dual citizenship and the kingdom of the sick and the kingdom of the well and it's only a matter of time before we use that other passport but the place that I found myself at was neither it was really hard for me to imagine a future John when I couldn't imagine myself existing in the future yet what has she given you in terms of lessons about life and love you have a limited time get to it I think that that is the biggest lesson embrace the imperfection their history was just what her heart needed to trust again and at every turn when I thought you know there was some aspect of this illness experience that was going to scare him away he was right there [Music] like a Renaissance woman salaka jawad's road trip may have ended but her journey has not and she knows that struggle will always be along for the ride to say that I'm Healed uh would be to imply that there's an end point and I think healing is something that we all do that will all continually do for the rest of our lives don't stop dreaming Don't Stop Believing [Music] cause you know that our time is coming up [Music] oh you've got I don't

Channel: Truth Be Told - Jon Batiste TV

Views: 40,741

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Id: fM49c7l0VHw

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 18 2023