The Council Of Dads Part 9

"The sunsets in New Mexico are like no place on earth," says Joshua Ramo, who should know. A native of Albuquerque, the itinerant author, business consultant, and stunt pilot has seen the sun go down in Beijing, London, Kyoto, Rome, and Provence-and that's just in the last month. "Twilight here is a spectator sport. People pull over in their cars to watch the sun go down."

We are sitting in a field of wildflowers on the side of Lama Mountain, a spiritual retreat in the Carson National Forest, 8,600 feet above sea level. A wildfire raced through here a decade ago. A knee-high brush of sage, lavender, bluebells, columbine, and pink nodding onion has sprouted up to cover the ground, but the sky is still scarred by barkless Ponderosa pines. The spirit of renewal is manifest here, but you cannot take in the scenery without being reminded of the ever presence of grief.

Joshua is the newest of my friends and the last of my dads, and he has brought me here on a summer's retreat to purge me of my chemo, mark the boundary of my treatment, and distill the essence of his advice to our girls.

But there was a catch: First we had to spend a day meditating, fasting, and not speaking.

"You mean you brought me halfway across the country to talk with you for two days only to then not not talk to you for a day?" I asked. talk to you for a day?" I asked.

"That's the Ramo way!" he said.

That's the Ramo paradox.

WHEN I I FIRST THOUGHT FIRST THOUGHT of the Council of Dads, I envisioned a group of names on a list. The dads were individuals who would have their own private relations.h.i.+ps with the girls. But as I started to share the idea with the men, the Council began to evolve. For starters, the dads took action. One sent a magazine subscription; another stopped by more frequently; a third asked for more photos of the girls. As one of them said, "I think it's part of my responsibility as a Council member to know the girls as they grow up." of the Council of Dads, I envisioned a group of names on a list. The dads were individuals who would have their own private relations.h.i.+ps with the girls. But as I started to share the idea with the men, the Council began to evolve. For starters, the dads took action. One sent a magazine subscription; another stopped by more frequently; a third asked for more photos of the girls. As one of them said, "I think it's part of my responsibility as a Council member to know the girls as they grow up."

Even more surprising, the men took a keen interest in one another-with equal parts curiosity, kins.h.i.+p, and rivalry. A fraternity developed. And suddenly my notion of a list no longer applied. It was more like a community, a circle, a Stonehenge a.s.sembly where the girls could seek relief.

In this circle I had certain figures: my childhood buddy, my camp counselor, my college roommate, my business partner, my closest confidant. But I had one last hole to fill.

"It's your creative side," Linda said. "The part of you that's visual, that photographs, that brings back masks and Bedouin carpets from your travels. You see things in color, not black and white. When the girls ask me why we have a j.a.panese kimono on the wall, or why your favorite color was orange, I need someone to explain how you looked at the world."

Joshua is that person.

He is the man who looks around the room and, while everyone else is sizing up one another, says, "Hey, isn't this beautiful!?" He's the little brother of the group, the one who lives by his own schedule, whose hair is a little unruly and who shows up for Thanksgiving with a beard just when Mom thinks he's finally cleaned himself up. He's the maverick, who stares into s.p.a.ce instead of doing his homework and who quotes the obscure poet or rock lyric and believes they're really true. He's the one who still says "dude" without irony.

And he's the one the girls all choose because they find him charming.

I first met Joshua six years earlier at a conference on a mountaintop in Utah. A onetime foreign editor at Time Time magazine, Joshua knew Linda through their shared interest in international affairs. At the time, he was living in Beijing, immersing himself in the study of Chinese. In the next few years, he would rise to become a top China a.n.a.lyst-writing papers, consulting for Fortune 500 CEOs, and eventually offering commentary alongside Bob Costas at the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. magazine, Joshua knew Linda through their shared interest in international affairs. At the time, he was living in Beijing, immersing himself in the study of Chinese. In the next few years, he would rise to become a top China a.n.a.lyst-writing papers, consulting for Fortune 500 CEOs, and eventually offering commentary alongside Bob Costas at the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

With his rock-star pout and rock-climber's body, Joshua was known to make attendees at international confabs swoon. With his economist's mind and poet's soul, he was known to intrigue clients with his Zen-like p.r.o.nouncements. He looked like a cross between James Dean and Steve Jobs.

He was also a confirmed-and even delighted-bachelor. That night in Utah we fell into a late-night conversation about G.o.d, his restless ambitions, and a certain girl from Tibet. When our conversation ended around 3:00 A.M. A.M., I went back to my room; he went to the hot tub. For years, Joshua stopped by occasionally when he pa.s.sed through New York, but Linda and I were up to our ears in sippy cups and diapers.

Then I got sick, and overnight Joshua became a fixture in our lives, a monthly comet and comforting com-patriot. It was during those months that I discovered a new side of him-a side that reminded me of, well, me. He was the man in the bespoke suit who donned a bomber jacket and barnstormed around Namibia in a borrowed plane. He was the hard-driving jet-setter who also volunteered at an AIDS hospice in South Africa. He was the man who loved beauty but was also drawn to pain.

In my year of gray, he helped restore my love of color.

Even as my body suffered, he reminded me to keep my eyes clear.

Linda was moved. "Few people this year were more attuned to your joy and suffering," she said. "If the girls wanted to know how deeply you feel things and how vividly you view the world, I would send them to him."

It was that sensitivity I wanted Joshua to convey to our girls. He is the one who would teach them how to appreciate the perfect panorama or the exquisite view. He's the person who would explain that even when they hurt, they should still find time for wonder. He's the man who would show the girls how to marvel at the everyday miracles around them.

Joshua would teach them how to see.

"WHY ARE WE HERE?" I asked.

The requisite silence and hunger had acc.u.mulated, and we were sitting the next day by a bubbling stream in a cl.u.s.ter of quaking aspens.

Joshua was silent for a full minute. "We're here to talk about fatherhood, and in many ways New Mexico is my father," he said. "The role a father plays in a boy's life is to make him a man and to show him how to see the world. My own father is a wonderful man. He's one of my closest friends. Whenever I have an important decision to make, he's the person I call at the very end for advice. But when I was growing up I needed something different."

He gestured toward the sanctuary around us. "The New Mexico wilderness is what made me who I am today. It imbued me with a love of beauty. It taught me how to take risks. It showed me how to push myself."

"So when you look out at this landscape, what do you see?"

"What I see is a constant unfolding visual poem," he said. "This stream, the clouds, the sunset last night. And when you grow up learning to see like that, you never stop."

I asked him how he would teach someone else to see that way.

"It has very little to do with what you are looking at," he said, "and everything to do with who you are. Seeing that way requires a certain internal stillness. The best aerobatic pilots fly their planes without any reference to what's going on outside the c.o.c.kpit. They don't need to look at the horizon; they don't need to see the ground. They look inside themselves for a sense of direction that's more accurate-but harder to cultivate."

Joshua grew up wanting to be a pilot but abandoned his dream for journalism. Within a decade he was a paragon of the mainstream media at a time when the mainstream media still had clout. Then, in 2000, while on a.s.signment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he witnessed a ma.s.sacre. "I basically decided that I was seeing things that were so awful, that just being a journalist wasn't going to be enough for me." He left the profession. The man of words would try to become a man of action.

"My favorite quote comes from the Roman general Epaminondas," Joshua said. "In A.D A.D. 70, he was rallying his troops for battle one day, when he sat on a chair and it collapsed underneath him. His men freaked out. It was a horrible omen. But Epaminondas stood up and announced, 'This is a sign that we must be up and doing.'"

He went on. "What I love about this line is that it shows the importance of how you see a particular event. You can turn a bad omen into a good one. Also, it endorses the power of an active life. Especially these days when around any corner could be a war, an epidemic, or some other unexpected crisis, being active is what the world demands of us."

A FEW DAYS BEFORE FEW DAYS BEFORE I left for New Mexico, Linda and I were trapped with the girls on an airport tarmac while wave after wave of thundershowers pa.s.sed overhead. The thirty or so pa.s.sengers on our plane were growing increasingly agitated. I left for New Mexico, Linda and I were trapped with the girls on an airport tarmac while wave after wave of thundershowers pa.s.sed overhead. The thirty or so pa.s.sengers on our plane were growing increasingly agitated.

An hour later, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the most idyllic rainbow appeared in the sky. Tybee was the first to see it. "Eden, look! A rainbow!" she cried. "Where!?" Eden asked. "Oh, Daddy, look look! Our first rainbow! It's so beautiful, I can hardly STAND it!!" The two of them then proceeded to dance on their seats with pure, unbridled glee. It was as if a unicorn had swept down from the clouds, plucked a mermaid from the seas, and were waltzing alongside our window.

And the entire plane full of pa.s.sengers, upon seeing their joy, burst into applause.

I told Joshua that story as we were sitting by the stream. "That's what I'm talking about," he said. "The world is ceaselessly filled with miracles like that rainbow. Sometimes it just takes a c.r.a.ppy situation to force us to see differently." He added. "That's what happened when you got sick."

I asked him why cancer had been such a boon to our friends.h.i.+p.

"My first thought when you got sick is that you can't have enough people around you at a time like that. Just jump in with an extra set of hands. But then you started showing me how to deal with a moment in which beauty wasn't unspooling every day, but in which something ugly was happening. Yet you dealt with it with a grace and humor that I don't think I could have brought to it, frankly. I would like to say it was a big selfless thing for me to be with you, but the reality was it was an education about what humans are capable of."

"If the girls came to you and asked what it was like during this year, what would you tell them?"

"I would tell them I saw a man who had lived his life in such a way that when he was confronted with the worst possible thing that can face a man, he was able to face it with no regrets. Think of how few people can say that. I've been with other people who are struggling through potentially terminal disease. I know what that looks like. You didn't look like that. And the reason, I think, is that you know who you are. You have a clear sense of internal navigation."

"So how do you teach someone that? If my girls asked you for help in discovering themselves, what would you do?"

"Ah, that's easy," he said. "I believe the best teacher is beauty. I'll teach them to memorize Auden poems and Shakespeare sonnets so that wherever they are at any given moment in the world, they can just sit under a tree and have Auden or Shakespeare or whomever as their companion for an afternoon. I'll give them the sound of Mahler symphonies that they can hear again and again and that will always trigger similar emotions. I'll show them how to appreciate Chinese calligraphy, which is an expression of your internal energy. If you have any doubt in your heart, it shows up in the brushstroke."

Joshua had taken off his shoes and was running his feet through the water. The spring that had barely gurgled when we arrived had slowly gained strength and filled the basin in front of us. The next morning we would drive down from the mountain and have dinner with his mom and dad. Soon, the confirmed bachelor would start talking about getting married and becoming a father himself. Peter Pan was growing up, while retaining his ability to see like a child.

"What I want Eden and Tybee to know," he continued, "is how easy it is to see beauty. How the wonder they felt on that plane never has to leave them. Miracles are all around them. They just have to learn to see through the clouds, and go out and harvest those miracles themselves. And, of course, I'd want them to know that this way of seeing never left you, even when you were sick. And it's how all of us who love them want them to see the world, too."

.21.

ALWAYS LEARN TO JUGGLE ON THE SIDE OF A HILL

JOHN H HEALEY HAS A PRINT of Fenway Park hanging above his desk. It shows a boy's-eye view of the playing field, with Old Glory flapping up above, sky the color of Superman's tights, and the Green Monster looming overhead. To the right of the print is a photograph of Carl Yastrzemski's final at bat on October 2, 1983. To the left is a Red Sox calendar, turned to the previous October, nine months earlier. of Fenway Park hanging above his desk. It shows a boy's-eye view of the playing field, with Old Glory flapping up above, sky the color of Superman's tights, and the Green Monster looming overhead. To the right of the print is a photograph of Carl Yastrzemski's final at bat on October 2, 1983. To the left is a Red Sox calendar, turned to the previous October, nine months earlier.

"As you can see, baseball is my first love," said Dr. Healey, who grew up outside Boston.

So when I asked him how he learned to juggle, I should not have been surprised when he came back to the most storied Red Stocking of all.

"I played baseball in high school," he said, "but my coach told the baseball people at Yale that I wasn't good enough to play for them. In the freshman league at college, however, I led the team in batting. I actually hit .406, which is the famous average of my favorite player, Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter in baseball."

With no slots left on the varsity squad, the coach invited the soph.o.m.ore prodigy to be a player-grunt, which allowed him to practice, but obliged him to handle tedious logistics, like renting the bus for out-of-town games. "I had ten at bats that year," Dr. Healey recalled. "I mostly sat on the bench. In those days, some people chewed tobacco to pa.s.s the time. I learned to juggle."

The attraction, he said, was the arc of the ball. "It all came back to my favorite geometric shape, which is a parabola. Watching a long fly ball, or foul tip to the catcher, is beautiful to me. It has an extremely calming effect, like a piece of clothing you buy that is immediately comfortable. That was the appeal of juggling. It's three parabolas at once!"

"Wait. You have a favorite geometric shape?" I asked.

"Absolutely. I know the mathematical formula. Also, there's a spinning of the object that's not visible at a distance that I find fascinating."

When his roommate came up with the idea to design Yale's first-ever mascot costume-a bulldog with a giant head-Dr. Healey put on the outfit for several football games a year. America's leading orthopedic cancer surgeon was Yale's first juggling mascot. And when his friend later tried out for Ringling Brothers' Clown College, Dr. Healey tagged along and auditioned on a whim. He was turned down.

Thirty-five years later, was juggling still relevant to his life?

"Sure. On a concrete level, I still love going to baseball games and seeing long fly b.a.l.l.s or pop-ups. Some are easy to catch, what are referred to as cans of corn; others are extremely challenging.

"And in a more metaphoric sense," he continued, "this is how I view my life. The easy ones are easy and anybody could catch those. It's the hard ones, the ones with the little extra spin, that really distinguish a pro. One of my goals is to try and reduce that extra spin and turn it into a can of corn. That's the constant challenge of my work. I turn the obstacles into something manageable. I take comfort in saying, 'I know how to do this.'"

JOHN H HEALEY KNOWS HOW to do a lot of things. The walls in his office not covered in Red Sox memorabilia brim with citations, degrees, certificates of appreciation, a profile from to do a lot of things. The walls in his office not covered in Red Sox memorabilia brim with citations, degrees, certificates of appreciation, a profile from New York New York magazine's "Best Doctors" issue, and a giant magazine's "Best Doctors" issue, and a giant Time Time magazine cover, "Hope in the War Against Cancer." His resume overflows with over 250 articles, 40 chapters in books, and 5 patents. He's a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, and serves as president of the International Society of Limb Salvage, perhaps the least euphemistic name I've ever heard. magazine cover, "Hope in the War Against Cancer." His resume overflows with over 250 articles, 40 chapters in books, and 5 patents. He's a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, and serves as president of the International Society of Limb Salvage, perhaps the least euphemistic name I've ever heard.

But none of these are what make him compelling. That accrues to the bow ties with Santas and candy canes, the Doughboy grin and unexpected laugh, the string of wise expressions that would make my dad proud: I hate your cancer almost as much as you do; This is a war and I intend to win it; Things like this change you, usually for the better I hate your cancer almost as much as you do; This is a war and I intend to win it; Things like this change you, usually for the better.

Above all, it's the way he delivers these lines, with the long pause before responding to each question that makes you wonder whether you just inadvertently called his mother a harlot; the snail-like parceling out of words; the idiosyncratic aura that makes him seem like a character out of a Harry Potter novel. He even has a name J. K. Rowling couldn't improve. What would you you call the prestidigitatorial Dumbledore who can cure the uncurable and salvage the unsalvageable? How about... call the prestidigitatorial Dumbledore who can cure the uncurable and salvage the unsalvageable? How about...Healey!

It was these quirks-and the erudition behind them-that drew me to see him on the anniversary of my diagnosis to garner counsel for myself, and for my girls. Before my "Lost Year" ended, I needed to hear from him. In my year of fathers, he was my father figure.

I began by asking him why he does what he does. "I have a love for it," he said. "It's a blessing that I can take that love and fulfill what I feel is a personal obligation to use my G.o.d-given talents to make the world a better place. I found something I am not only good at, but, at the risk of being prideful, I strive to be the the best in the world at. In fact, every day when I wake up and look in the mirror while I'm shaving, I say, 'Today I am going to be best in the world at. In fact, every day when I wake up and look in the mirror while I'm shaving, I say, 'Today I am going to be The Best Doctor in the World The Best Doctor in the World.' It's something that I haven't achieved but continue to strive for."

"At every step along the way," I said, "first medical school, then orthopedics, then cancer, you chose something narrower, darker, bleaker."

He nodded ruefully. "I had broken seven different bones at seven different times," he said, "playing sports and thinking that I was bigger and stronger and better than I was. But I overcame these injuries and went back on the field. So my initial instinct was to be a sports medicine doctor.

"But I soon found that taking care of people who want to play tennis that weekend wasn't sufficiently satisfying to me. That's important. I'm glad someone's doing that. But I gravitated to where the most interesting questions were. Cancer, as the biggest horizon, the toughest problem, and the greatest need, was the logical choice."

"But that means a lot of your patients don't get better."

"There are no greater successes and no greater failures," he said. "So you have to have an ability to deal with that. If you get to the point where you stop feeling it, then you're not doing your job. But if you feel it too much, it paralyzes you. It's defining courage not as blindly going into a dangerous situation, but really understanding how dangerous it's going to be, yet somehow mustering the courage to go.

"Paraphrasing Patton," he continued, "'War brings out the best in people.' Sure, the worst. But also, the best. And since this is the greatest war in my discipline, I get to glimpse into the heart, the spirit, and the mind of people who have to deal with this enormous challenge and see how they find the strength they didn't believe they had. Even their mother didn't think they had it. But they do. And they show me how great humanity and the human condition can be."

He paused. "So even in the failures," Dr. Healey said, "I glimpse greatness. In fact, the greatest people I know are people who have survived this disease. They have a clarity about life and what they want to accomplish that is mind-blowing. It's a privilege to be their doctor."

"You told us in our first meeting that most people who go through this experience are changed," I said, "usually for the better. What does that mean?"

"They understand themselves better. They are less distracted by the transient, unimportant things. Family becomes more central. Plus, they usually develop a constructive spirituality, one not based on dogma but real-life experience. And they are more sensitive to the suffering of others. They have an empathy that is part of the greatness of human beings."

"So here is the question anybody would ask," I said. "'How do I get me some of that without going through this?'" I gestured toward my leg.

"I guess that's what I'm doing," Dr. Healey said.

"I'm getting some of it. It's true for me, and I believe it's a widespread truth, that those of us in the healing professions want to believe that if we do good works, we're not going to get sick. Of course that's nonsense, but we like to believe it.

"But in the process, we do gain vicariously from treating others. I know for myself, having access to the Full Monty of human emotions helps me enormously in my own life. So what I would say is, 'Engage those who have problems. Understand their situation. Mostly, just listen.' As my father used to say, 'You don't learn anything when your mouth is open. Your ears, that's a different story...'"

I DIDN'T LEARN TO DIDN'T LEARN TO juggle in college. I learned in summer camp, when I was thirteen. My counselor had studied under the legendary mime Marcel Marceau and taught us various tricks, like touching a window that wasn't there or playing tug-of-war with an imaginary rope. One morning he set out to teach us how to juggle. We purloined oranges from the breakfast room, stood on the gravel hill outside our tent, and b.u.mbled our way from single toss, to double, to three-orb cascade. juggle in college. I learned in summer camp, when I was thirteen. My counselor had studied under the legendary mime Marcel Marceau and taught us various tricks, like touching a window that wasn't there or playing tug-of-war with an imaginary rope. One morning he set out to teach us how to juggle. We purloined oranges from the breakfast room, stood on the gravel hill outside our tent, and b.u.mbled our way from single toss, to double, to three-orb cascade.

There was only one problem: We were learning with fruit at the precipice of a slope, which meant every time we dropped an orange (which was hundreds of times in those early hours) our little spheres of stolen suns.h.i.+ne would drop to the ground, pulpify, then wobble to the bottom of the incline, leaving us covered in rind, dripping in juice, and exhausted from scurrying after them. It was a fool's errand, like the clown who refuses to see how half-witted he is.

Except it worked.

And forever after, that ill-conceived experiment became something of a life motto for me: Always learn to juggle on the side of a hill. If you're going to try something, try it. If you're going to make the pose, a director friend of mine liked to say, make the pose. Don't half commit.

And whether it was our shared heritage as teenage cutups, or my need to see my doctor as a savior, I came to view Dr. Healey as the embodiment of this ideal. This is a war and I intend to win it. I'm going to be the last man standing. Today I'm going to be the best doctor in the world. This is a war and I intend to win it. I'm going to be the last man standing. Today I'm going to be the best doctor in the world.

He lived his life on the side of a hill.

Given that outlook, I wondered what lessons he might draw from my case, especially if I turned out to be one of his failures.

"It's fifteen years from now," I said. "One of my daughters comes to you and says, 'Why did my daddy die?' What would you tell her?"

The master of pauses paused far longer than I had ever witnessed. Then he cleared his throat. Then he leaned forward.

"I would say that there is no simple answer to that," he said. "On one hand, everybody dies. Many people actually never live, and your daddy lived. It was just not as long as any of us would have liked. But he lived well, and he provided a great example for you. And as sad as it is that he's not here, you can take some solace in knowing how much he loved you and how hard he fought to be here for you."

"So she says to you, 'You've been around many who died. How should I live?'"

Again he thought for a minute. "Have a joy in everything you do," he said. "Help those around you. Make a mark on this world."

"'And if along the way,' she says, 'I end up in your office, or one like it, with some condition, what do I need to fight my own war?'"

Here the pauses finally waned. Dr. Healey was filling with purpose. He was that warrior, who first looked me in the eye a year earlier and said, "Give me your hand. I'll show you how to do this. We're going to do this together." And in that instant, when my legs were most bowed and my eyes most frightened, I would have followed him anywhere he led.

"I would say to your daughter, 'Do your homework,'" Dr. Healey said. "'Get the best allies you can, both medically and personally. Remain focused on the goal. And don't look back, because that just squanders your energy, disrupts your focus, and sows seeds of doubt and recrimination that are destructive for yourself and the people around you.'

"It's what I call the Satchel Paige approach," he said.

"Satchel being maybe the greatest pitcher of all time, but being a black man, he was barred from the Major Leagues. After Jackie Robinson, he was pitching for the Cleveland Indians, and, at age forty-two, had finally made the All-Star Team. A reporter asked him, 'Hey, Satch, don't you regret not being up in your prime?' And Satchel responded, 'Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.'