I'm Not Dead... Yet! (3 page)

(I fractured my hip filming a hockey scene); but as a baseball player

(at 14), I owned the legendary street-rat distinction of hitting a baseball all the way from the old baseball field at Riverside Park, up, up, up, and disappearing onto the West Side Highway.

I was a marathoner running 3:05 in the 1983 New York Marathon.

(Ahh! I didn’t break 3 hours. I thought I’d get a second chance to shave that 5 minutes off my time.)

I excelled in some things, was a total failure in others, and tried to make up for my shortcomings with a work ethic that almost killed me.

My foundation was strong: my heroes were my two loving parents who met young,

married young

and are still in love today. My sister, just a year older than me,

was smart, talented, loving and on her way to becoming an astonishingly successful fashion designer: Shelli Segal. (The real talent in our family.)

I had everything anyone could hope for: family, friends, a privileged life, a career and the greatest woman I had ever met as my wife and best friend. And I knew how fortunate I was, which made it all the sweeter.

Sure, there were career ups and downs, but with each day, life began with blissful optimism. The math for our family: strength plus intelligence times compassion plus tolerance equals my template for life.

I don’t mean to brag but:

So honestly, I was one very lucky guy.

I did have one minor problem:

I —couldn’t —breathe.

I would need a cow valve placed in my heart to keep me alive.

Funny

how one minute you think you’re on top of the world, and the next

you may be under it.

I thought I was doomed.

Doomed…