Life Is Good

I used to think I was invincible. At fifteen I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, handed a plan, a Blood Sugar Monitor, and a pile of warnings. I was a teenager; I shrugged. I told myself I’d be fine. For years I lived like the rules were for someone else.

On 4 May 2012, driving to work, the bill came due. After years of hard drinking and countless cigarettes a sudden catastrophic stroke took my right side and my words. I remember the sound of the engine and then the quiet of a hospital room where my own mouth wouldn’t obey me. My business collapsed while I lay still, watching numbers fall and ceiling tiles blur. I learned how to sit, to stand, to move my hand one stubborn millimeter at a time. I learned how to make a sentence again. It was a long, humiliating, holy education in patience.

Then, in 2018, I woke to find the world halved: blind in my left eye. A few weeks later the right eye followed. Mismanaged diabetes over forty-odd years had taken what I’d taken for granted. I won’t lie—there were days I was furious, and nights I was afraid. But life is not only what it takes. It’s also what it gives if you stay.

What it gave me was a different way to make meaning. I found voice-assisted technology and started talking to the page. At first it was awkward—stumbles, rephrases, a hundred corrections. Then something opened. Stories poured out. I published my first book in late 2024. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Thriller, history, romance, fantasy—I built worlds I could walk in without sight, worlds I could share so others might walk there too. Writing didn’t replace what I’d lost; it revealed what I hadn’t: imagination, grit, humor, love.

I also got a partner: Rosy, my guide dog. We walk the beach together, wind in our faces, paws and feet in rhythm. She is a compass with a heartbeat. Strangers see a man with a disability and a beautiful dog; I feel a man with a life, moving forward beside a friend who never doubts the way. The ocean doesn’t ask for perfection. It asks for presence. So does storytelling. So does love.

I won’t polish the hard parts. I didn’t follow the diabetic plan when I should have. I paid for that. If any young version of me is reading: take care of yourself now. But hear this, too: even after the worst day, joy is possible. Laughter returns. Work returns. Purpose returns. I lost a business; I found my calling. I lost my sight; I learned to see differently. I lost words; now I make a living with them.

People sometimes tell me I’m unlucky. I don’t feel that way. I feel alive. I get to wake up, call Rosy, and make sentences that didn’t exist yesterday. I get to write books that travel further than I can, meet readers I’ll never meet in person, and stand in the surf with salt on my face thinking, This is a very good life.

If my stories have a heartbeat, it’s this: setbacks don’t end the story—you do, when you stop turning pages. I didn’t stop. If you’re in a hard chapter, don’t stop. There’s another page ahead. I’ll meet you there, Rosy at my side, and we’ll keep going.