hey bros,
i didn't really spend any time promoting Movember this year due to some personal business, but this is nonetheless my third year of participating in it, and it's a slightly better mo showing for me this year.
Special thanks to AdamSchwartz, cwise, and NIX, who donated last year. It was very touching that people I barely know online were willing to contribute to a cause that affected my family so much.
If you wish to do donate even $1, please consider doing it through my link.
http://us.movember.com/mospace/707436
Last year, I voted for everyone who donated in the annual poster bracket circle-jerk, and if I get any donations this year, I plan to do it in the Lockout Edition of the poster bracket as well.
There may even be a sweet KHL hockey card in your future for the largest donation.
******** WARNING EMO WALL OF TEXT INCOMING *****
BY READING FURTHER YOU FORFEIT YOUR RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME UNTIL THE HOCKEY SEASON RESUMES
Over 26 years ago, cancer claimed the life of my grandmother, who to this day remains the strongest woman I've ever known, even though I barely remember her. She was a nurse, and raised her three children to live up to higher standards than what the soviet regime expected out of a jewish family from Odessa (now Ukraine). It happened when I was too young to really comprehend it or make sense of my feelings. I couldn't put them into words for decades after.
In the last 4 years, cancer once again struck my family. Both my mother and MIL fought and survived breast-cancer, while my great-aunt succumbed to leukemia after a long battle. To say that this changed my outlook on life would be an understatement. It was one of the reasons I joined Movember and got interested in health and fitness. I've also discovered that hockey provides a truly awesome outlet for anyone wishing to do charity in this area.
Two weeks ago tomorrow, my family got word that we lost my grandfather who was still living in Russia. Cancer cells were found in his system almost 10 years ago, but he got treatment. Most recently he had been extremely weak and was hospitalized in the last weeks of his life.
He was a WWII vet, an artillery colonel, and easily a top-3 male influence on my life. I realized that throughout my life, he was a person always in search of his next passion. He was an avid hiker and backpacker, a poet and a writer. He loved to tell jokes and do crossword puzzles from every single newspaper. Although he did not like gambling, he taught me his enthusiasm for cards (mostly
Preferans), which he loved as a never-ending puzzle and the camaraderie it provided for him and his weekly partners.
Often, I would spend after-school evenings with him, during which we flipped through tomes of math and word problems, and discuss our respective solutions to them. I was only ~10 years old, but he had a way to make me feel brilliant for finding the trick to a certain problem. He was also most disappointed when I would misbehave, but never made me feel judged.
My favorite story is that he was always my supporter. I was not a promising athlete in my youth, but one day I found myself running against a more popular kid in 400m track. I did not expect my grandfather to attend, and was pleasantly surprised when he came to wish me luck before the race. Expected to lose against the better athlete, i stayed on his heels through the first 300, and decided to go hard in the final straight away. There were a few people in the stands, mostly other kids shouting for the more popular kid in a close race, but I did hear my grandfather's voice through it all. "Миша давай!" I'll never forget how on the way home my grandfather told me he was proud of my win.
I remember him saying goodbye to us at the Sheremetyevo airport, and looking back at him when we finally walking through customs. It was a dark winter eve of Valentine's day 1995. The image of him somewhat frantically looking for a better spot to stand just so he could look at us for one second longer is ingrained in my head. It is the most frazzled i've ever seen him, but it is how I will remember him. A very active, remarried 73-year old, in an old-school leather hat and jacket, doing his best to adjust from living off a communist pension to new times in Russia. The last of his children elected to live on the greener pastures of American capitalism, but he still had 17 years ahead of him, and he was going to make the most of them.
He did make one trip to America to see how his children and grandchildren lived. My family was going through a tough time, which he didn't find out until he arrived here, and before he left he made sure to let me know that it is in my power to help us through it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when an opportunity came, I remembered his plea and started the dialog that helped my family become whole again. I was the lucky recipient of gratitude, but I cannot accept it without attributing it all to my grandfather's foresight. At difficult times in my own life I always thought about how I would explain my actions to him, a person of impenetrable human principles. His last wish to us was, "Do not cry, I led a very interesting and happy life."
I am donating in his name to a worthy cause. I really hope to put a plaque with his name on a park trail somewhere.
Спасибо дедушка.
/emo