This is a photo from the night of my 18th birthday. It was the first time I saw my favorite band live and halfway through Something Corporate’s set, the police shut the concert down and turned on the lights because kids were passing out from heatstroke (and probably alcohol poisoning) in the gymnasium. Andrew didn’t skip a beat. He jumped on top of the piano, then the amps and led a 700-person sing-a-long for the next 30 minutes, despite the threats of campus security, and, later, police.
Since that night, the man has been defiant in the face of far more intimidating obstacles. Imagined demons, real ones. I have seen him play his piano with shaggy blonde hair, spiky black hair, no hair at all… no eyebrows, no body fat. Just a smile. I was the first person he walked into when he came out of Jack’s Mannequin’s first NYC show at the Knitting Factory. Gushing like the teenage groupie I was, I told him he played a great show and he asked me if I meant it. He said he felt like shit and he was pissed because he thought it had showed.
The next day he was admitted to a Manhattan hospital. Within a week he was diagnosed with leukemia.
It’s unnervingly easy to give up when you hit a wall. To give in to self-pity and bury yourself in bed with alcohol, carbohydrates and bit torrents of bad, long-cancelled teen dramas on your laptop. But whenever that sounds tempting, all you have to do is look at someone like this man. Someone who knows the value of life and that the meaning is in the journey, not the destination.
Today is a day to thank your inspirations by practicing what they preach. Catch a little spark off their flame and start your own fire. Love with your whole heart, live fearlessly, laugh loudly. Dance on your piano, smile through your sickness, turn your broken heart into art. Just don’t panic. There simply is no need.
