Everybody's Got Something

by Roberts, Robin

  The day after the awards, I received a very special gift from Tom Cruise. He arranged for me to fly a P-51 Mustang, the exact same type of plane that my beloved father had flown in World War II. It was as if my friend who arranged this experience had cast an invisible lasso to my past that tied me palpably and memorably to my father’s career as a fighter pilot, at a time when men like him were still treated like second-class citizens the moment their feet hit the ground.

  About ten years ago, Good Morning America did a fantasy segment and invited all of our on-air team to live their wildest dreams: Mine was to fly a plane like my father had, to fly—not walk—in his shoes, as he had in the 1940s. My wish was granted. The producers arranged for me to have eight hours of training at Moton Field in Tuskegee, where my father and his fellow soldiers had trained. And as I made my way down that tarmac toward the plane, I could literally feel the spirits of all those brave young men who had walked this road before me. They were called the Tuskegee Airmen, but at eighteen, nineteen, many were barely old enough to shave. Young men who couldn’t vote, couldn’t attend the same schools or even drink from the same water fountains as the white recruits, and yet they saved thousands of lives without regard to race. My father and his fellow Airmen broke the color line in the sky decades before they could break it on the ground.

  My father was still alive when we taped that segment, and I had been doing TV for a good long time. He was not easily impressed by the bells and whistles of fame and he remained, throughout his entire life, the strong and silent type. The day that I taped my Good Morning America fantasy segment was a different story. Dad, who was usually reserved, was ablaze with energy and conversation that morning. He wore his red blazer because that was what the Airmen wore. When that old AT-6 aircraft came chugging down the runway, it was hard to tell who was more excited, me or Dad. Then when I got into the plane and put my hands on the gear, shifting the nose upward, and the plane took off from the ground, I will never forget the expression on my father’s face. He had lived to see me fly a plane the way he had as a young man. I had always been a daddy’s girl, but that moment cinched it forever.

  My father passed away the next year, suddenly and unexpectedly. This year will mark ten years without him, and I still miss him every day. Lawrence Roberts retired as a full bird colonel from the military, and while it’s a funny term—“full bird colonel”—it’s fitting for my dad. He was an eagle: proud, strong, with wings that were strong enough to carry our entire family all the way around the world then safely back home. Because my dad was a pilot, an eagle, there’s nowhere I feel closer to him than when I’m in the sky. I’m never nervous flying, even when it’s a turbulent ride, because I know that no matter what, the spirit of Daddy is near.

  I was already on cloud nine after the ESPYs, but the next day when I went out to the airport to receive Tom’s gift, the opportunity to fly a genuine Tuskegee Airmen plane, I was beside myself. In the Good Morning America fantasy segment, I had flown an AT-6, which was the plane my father had trained on before the war. But this plane, the one that Tom owns and keeps in meticulous condition, was a P-51 Mustang, and it was exactly the same as Dad’s, right down to the red-painted tail that had made the Tuskegee Airmen famous.

  It’s been said that life is not measured by the amount of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away. As I stood on the tarmac, I felt like I was five years old again. There was no music, but I did a little swaying happy dance. The kind of dance that a kid might do if you announced that unexpectedly, there was no school. And oh yeah, veggies have been outlawed. And you were taking them to the amusement park where you fully expected them to ride all the rides and eat as much candy as humanly possible. Being up in that plane, in the same make and model that my father flew was like getting a chance to high-five Daddy in heaven. My heart was pounding, my blood was racing. I was soaring, literally and figuratively. Thank you, Tom.

  Chapter 31

  Still Freakin’ Blessed

  What I have wanted for most of this past year sounds very simple. I just wanted to feel better the next day than I’d felt the day before. It had been so long since I’d felt normal, whatever normal is. Just feeling normal again was such a gift.

  In August 2013, I sat in again for Kelly Ripa and did her show with Michael “Lovely Day” Strahan. There was a $400 million jackpot in the New York Powerball, and everyone was talking about it. Michael asked me what I would do with so much money. And I just couldn’t answer the question. Of course, there are people I could help and even more causes I could support. I know that money can do good and make a difference. But for me, now and for the rest of my life, the only jackpot that I’ve got my eye on is perfect health. I just want to be well.

  You can’t put a price tag on that. I would give every dime I have, I would give everything I own, just to be at full health again. My physical and mental well-being has been my primary focus, my only focus.

  I had the opportunity to interview Oprah when Lee Daniel’s The Butler came out, and as always, we did more talking during the commercial break than we did on the air. Off camera, she asked me, “So how are you? How are you, really?”

  I told her that, “I can honestly say now I’m doing really well.” I was saying it before, but I meant it now.

  She said, “You came back in February.”

  I said, “I know, but I was willing myself into that chair. That was 90 percent willpower.”

  I was medically cleared. I want people to understand that I didn’t do anything beyond doctor’s orders. I followed doctor’s orders. Physically, yes. Physically my numbers were at a place that let me come back. A big part of me wanted to resume my life.

  Dr. Giralt says, “All of these things were carefully planned. We try to identify what’s an individual’s North. You want to try to never take away somebody’s North because you leave them without hope. Robin’s North is her ability to be out there and communicating with people. Putting her in Saran wrap and locking her in a room so she wouldn’t get an infection would have led to depression and worse things. We felt we had to start letting her go out. The risks were well worth the mental benefits that she got. We were exposing her to a healing power that no medicine could have, and that was the perception that she was going to get back to her regular life and the things that made her thrive.”

  But it wasn’t really until last May and June that I started to turn the corner. I think it had more than a little something to do with the weather. I’m a summer girl. I think it’s a Southern thing. I love the warmth and being able to take KJ for longer walks and getting out in the fresh air. I was so appreciative of how comfortable I felt being out and not being so scared that I had to wear a mask or gloves.

  Since I’ve been feeling better, I have Skyped and talked with many people going through cancer and, more specifically, facing a bone marrow transplant. It’s usually the loved one who contacts me, not the patient. Family and friends are searching to do whatever they can to help in any way they can and they reach out to me, especially when the patient mentions my name to them.

  Oftentimes I’m the only one they know who has gone through this. I usually do most of the listening because they know I truly understand them, that I understand their fears, questions and hopes.

  Recently, I got into an e-mail conversation with a man whose young daughter was at a nearby hospital awaiting a transplant. Somehow he’d gotten my direct address, and we began e-mailing back and forth. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he wrote to tell me that she’d been taken off of the transplant list because she had bacteria in her blood. It was such a long e-mail, full of random thoughts, and at the end, he said, “I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” He said, “It’s the weekend and the hospital is so quiet.”

  As my mother would say, “Oh, mercy.” I remember that. At that moment, it all came flooding back to me. How quiet it was on the weekends in the hospital. How the regular staff was gone and the friends who stopped by on their way to and from work
were running around doing their weekend things. The days seemed endless and the nights seemed reaaaaaaaaally endless. I could understand what he was feeling, and I was happy to be able to share that lonely, quiet moment with him.

  I am so committed to sharing my journey, and I pray that it’s helpful, but what just rips my heart out is that there have been many times that I get a follow-up call months later and learn that someone I’ve spoken with didn’t make it. Amber always knows when it is one of those days.

  The other day, Amber called, and she could tell from the tone of my voice something was wrong. She said, “What’s the matter?”

  And I said, “There was a little boy that I talked to, it was after Hurricane Sandy, and he was in the hospital in New Jersey, and I Skyped with him.”

  It was really funny, because I couldn’t get Skype to work, and he was about eleven years old and he’s talking me through Skype. He asked, “Now did you push this? Now do this.”

  Then boom, he comes up on my screen. He’s got a Jets jersey on, and I have a Saints one on. We had such a good time talking and it was really sweet. And now he’s gone. It’s just not fair.

  There was a gentleman and his wife. I talked to them on the phone, and just six weeks later the person who had arranged the call sent me an e-mail: “I just wanted to let you know that he’s passed away, but he really appreciated it and his wife appreciated the phone call.” All I could think was, “Wow.”

  But I have to believe that our conversations are part of a ripple effect, a good that comes out of all the bad that is this disease. All these people, my fellow thrivers, touch my life, and I hopefully make some small impact on their journeys, and none of our lives are ever exactly the same.

  * * *

  During my agonizing round of high-dose chemo followed by the absolute gut-wrenching post-transplant recovery, I had stared at a picture of Hawaii on my hospital room wall. Once I’d reached my hundred days, once I’d gotten back to work, I thought, “How do I thank my friends for all that they’ve done? How do I thank Bugs for her great Cajun cooking? Lois Ann and Cathy for repeatedly traveling cross-country from California? How do I thank Jo and Kim for taking care of KJ? How do I thank Scarlett for squeezing my hand when the fear of death was knocking at my door, and how do I thank Julie for helping me write my last will and testament?”

  I thought about sending them something engraved and fancy from a place like Tiffany. Then I remembered Kim’s fiftieth birthday in Tuscany. My fiftieth birthday in Turks and Caicos. And I thought of places we hadn’t all gone together like Hawaii, and the picture my friends had so lovingly taped to the hospital room wall. The gift I wanted to give couldn’t be wrapped. I wanted to take my friends to Maui.

  One of my favorite edicts is “Make one day, day one.” We spend so much of our lives wishing and hoping. And I get that not everybody has the means or the ability to make their dreams come true at this very moment. But if there’s one thing that spending a year fighting for your life against a rare and insidious bone marrow disease will teach you, it’s that time is not to be wasted. If you can, let the darkest moments of my journey inspire you. You want to start exercising? Make one day, day one. Get up today and start walking. Because there were days when I couldn’t even get out of bed. You want to start eating healthier? When you’re walking down the aisles of the grocery store, skip the junk food and buy a bag of salad. Think of all the days and days when I couldn’t even chew food and my only nourishment was a foul-smelling bag of lipids being fed to me by IV.

  As I’ve gotten better, this is a message I must preach to myself. For so long, my friends and I had said, “One day, we’ll all go to Hawaii.” But for most of 2012, I didn’t know if I was going to live long enough to see that magical island again, much less do something as luxurious as go on vacation with my friends. But somehow I survived. And while not everyone could come, most of my inner circle were able to join me for a trip that was as much about gratitude as it was about mai tais and palm trees. Hawaii was my way of saying, “Thank you. Thank you for loving me through this.” It was also a sunshine-filled message to my own battered soul. I had made it. I had made it. One day was now day one.

  Afterword

  A New Year

  For Momma

  Dear Momma,

  December 31, 2011. I was sitting with you in the family room. You were in your comfy recliner in front of the TV. Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve was on the tube. When we bought this house in 1975, you insisted on having a fireplace built in the family room. A beautiful stone fireplace that we never used. But you always wanted a fireplace, so a fireplace we had. That was you, Momma. You’d get your mind set on something and that was that.

  I sat at my laptop, helping you put the finishing touches on your memoir. All that was left was to write the acknowledgments. I was touched that you referred to me, Butch, Dorothy and Sally-Ann as the loves of your life. But you didn’t stop there. You kept firing away, name after name. You thanked your friends, your doctors, every nurse that had ever taken your temperature, every home health-care worker who had ever crossed our door. You gave shout-outs to church members, neighbors who had long moved away, even the postman. I remember innocently suggesting that you didn’t have to thank everyone. I will never forget your response. You turned and looked at me, straightened your glasses and smiled. You said, “Oh, honey, you can’t put a limit on gratitude.”

  You can’t put a limit on gratitude. As the new year would unfold, I would learn just how true your words would prove to be.

  Now it is almost New Year’s 2014 and I am putting the finishing touches on a book I never expected to write.

  Momma, for fifty-two years, you filled me up with your own Lucimarian brew of love, a love that made me as strong as the oak trees that surrounded my childhood home. Strong enough to fight for my life, not once but twice. Strong enough to survive the worst storm that could ever blow my way—losing you. Losing Daddy was so hard. When your four grown children came home to comfort you after his death, it was you who comforted us, by asking us to crawl in your lap. At almost every age, your lap and your arms were my safety net. I leapt, in my life, and with my heart wide open, because I knew that you would always be there to catch me. Actually, you inspired me to take chances and knew if I fell that you’d be there to pick me back up.

  How did you know, Momma? How did you know that I could hold your hand as you took your last breath, kiss your sweet face good-bye and still be standing? I didn’t know. But somehow you knew. You filled me with love and trusted that your love would see me through. And it did. And it has.

  You told me, as you finished your book, that you can’t put a limit on gratitude. I promise that I will not skimp on my own acknowledgments. I will not leave out a soul.

  But as I close this chapter of my life, as I put MDS in the rearview mirror and I begin—day by day—to fully inhabit the land of the well and forget what it was like to be shipwrecked in the land of the sick, I want to make sure that my gratitude for you is crystal clear. Your devotion, your faith, your kitchen-table wisdom were the never-waning weapons in the arsenal in the fight of my life.

  Thank you, Momma. Miss you, Momma. Again and again, every day of my precious life, I love you and I thank you.

  Acknowledgments

  As Momma said: You can’t put a limit on gratitude. So this could take a while.

  I was humbled when I was approached by publishers to share my story. At first I was uncertain if I wanted to write another book. While many encouraged me to write it shortly after my return to the anchor chair, Jamie Raab at Grand Central Publishing told me to take my time. Thank you, Jamie, for believing my story would have an impact whenever I decided to share it. From our first phone call I knew you were the one. Your spirit is contagious. I’m drawn to authentic souls like yours. My thanks to you and your stellar team at Grand Central.

  As a journalist I write for a living. Writing a book is totally different. Thank you, Veronica Chambers, for your lite
rary expertise and friendship. You were instrumental in helping me bring my words, my story, to life. You gently pushed me to reveal more about my journey than I ever have. I’m grateful for the amount of time you spent with me in my home in New York and the Pass. Time with me meant time away from your precious family. Thank you, Jason and Flora. I hope Flora gets that puppy she wants. In the meantime she can walk KJ anytime.

  I literally fall on my knees and thank the good Lord for directing me to Dr. Sergio Giralt and Dr. Gail Roboz. They were the team captains of my dream team of nurses, technicians and all the health-care professionals who were my angels. For thirty days at Memorial Sloan-Kettering you were there for me 24/7. Every patient there was under your watchful, caring eyes. The nursing staff at MSKCC are rock stars and are led by Holly Wallace and Kathy Choo: Dena Barnes, Julie Kleber, Theresa Mathews, Chelsea Mintz, Jenny Tran, Katie Kilroy and Tonya Samuel; nutritionist Tatanisha Peets and your staff; music therapist, Taryn Thomas; physical therapist Lauren Liberatori; security guards Manny Rosa and Gregory Amour; my outpatient nurses Sheila Kenny, Lorraine Jackson and Gloria Coffey; my outpatient physical therapist, Sharifa Gayle…thank you all for making me laugh and wiping away my tears. Thank you, Jeanne D’Agostino, for fiercely protecting my privacy.

  At New York–Presbyterian: physician’s assistant, Maureen Thyne; nurses Jessica Markis and Judy Murphy; medical technicians Virginia Hernandez and Anna Castillo; security staff Mark Warren, Sergeant Andrew Pottinger, Officer Susan Franov and Crystal Dones; patient services: Ellen Hawa…thank you for my continued great care, and thank you to Takla Boujaoude for also protecting my privacy.