So.
It's Tuesday. Anything interesting happen yesterday?
While you're all stewing and mulling and pondering and hyperventilating over the impending sale of Tribune Company, and what it means to the Cubs and whether Wrigley Field will be included in the Cubs sale (and I cannot imagine any prospective owner NOT wanting the ballpark, too), I wanted to tell you about a book I've recently read, which I highly recommend and which will give you, or ought to, a new perspective on your life.
"In An Instant" is the story of Bob Woodruff, the ABC News reporter and anchor who was seriously wounded while reporting in Iraq.
I feel an affinity toward him and his wife, Lee, who co-wrote the book, not just because I also work at ABC, but because both of them attended my school, Colgate University, though after I had graduated. The book is written in "segments", almost like a diary written by both of them as a conversation or journal, describing not only how he was wounded and recovered, but also how they got to that point in both their lives.
The recovery itself was nothing short of miraculous -- half of Woodruff's skull was destroyed by the bomb blast and had to be reconstructed, and he is lucky to be alive. Lee Woodruff tells of how she had to tell her kids, and the rest of her family, and how they all pulled together. While it is true that, because he is a journalist and thus has access to resources that others perhaps wouldn't, the story is still one of survival, of doubts, of highs and lows, that anyone in such a situation would go through. It's a story of love too, not just Lee and Bob, but their entire family and how their faith in each other and in their doctors helped bring him back to where he could return to work at nearly full capacity, though his rehab continues even today.
One very good thing that came out of this event, was that Bob Woodruff was able, through his position as a reporter, to help bring attention to the plight of soldiers who don't have the resources he had, and also the current troubles in VA hospitals around the country. His family has also started the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury, which will help to assist members of the military who have suffered brain injuries.
I'm not sure I've really managed to capture how much I was touched by reading his story, an amazing tale of survival and renewal. It's a story of love and family and hope, and well worth reading. In the summer of 2008, I'll be attending my 30-year college reunion (gulp! how could it have been that long?), which I have learned will be Bob Woodruff's 25th. I hope to meet him then and shake his hand -- I admire him and his wife greatly.
Read this book. Well worth your time.