Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Maintaining a positive outlook in the face of adversity
I had my annual check-up ten days ago. Despite the physical knocks – mostly self-afflicted – I have taken in recent years, I am in great shape right now (training for a June marathon helps), and this was remarked upon. But part of one’s annual physical these days regards mental health, as it should, and I was asked if there was anything concerning me of late.
My reply?
“Well, I’m glad I am in good physical and emotional health, because so far this year… My mother died, and I spent ten weeks in the UK dealing with everything around that, including being assigned executor of her will. While I was there, my partner back home had a biopsy and was diagnosed with lung cancer; I was not there for that, though I managed to make it home for her operation. My older son has had a mysterious ailment that’s prevented him working, and my younger son came home early from his second year at college with a medical withdrawal due to his unhappiness there. Oh, and one of my best friends died last week.”
I did not mention the state of the USA, and its steady slip into totalitarianism, fueled by vindictiveness, ultra-nationalism and white supremacy, delighting in active hostility, and actively engaging in financial ruin while filling its private coffers with brazen corruption; one hopes that is a given.
But hey, they did ask. And my answer did cause my doctor (the one who riffed with me on the loudest shows of all time when I went to get my tinnitus diagnosed) and the student NP shadowing him to slow down, pause, and acknowledge. Further, having suddenly admitted to all this, having acknowledged what I have been dealing with, recognizing that I’ve been needed by those closest to me whether or not I could deliver all they wanted, I did endure some wide-awake hours in the middle of the night’s darkness last week. So yeah, on one level my 2025 has been utterly shit so far, thanks for asking.
“Living Well Is The Best Revenge” is the opening track to R.E.M.’s 14th album, Accelerate, about which my Substack partner and I hosted a Crossed Channels podcast just last week. The title is a reference to the George Herbert book of proverbs, Jacula Prudentium.
On another level, though, I have everything – well, so much – to be grateful for, and I want to put it out there because I know many of us are struggling. We are in a world of total overload – an overload of information, an overload of politics, an overload of entertainment, an overload of scare-mongering and an overload of stress as a result. I’m susceptible to all the same negative aspects of this overload as anyone else, but somehow, I was granted a positive outlook on life. If I now share some further thoughts about some of the above, it’s primarily in the hope that you too will see positives in what ostensibly are negatives, and not let this overload get you too far down that you can’t get up again. So…
1) I am still somewhat in awe at being witness to my mother’s departure: “privileged” is the word my cousin used, “a good death” is what the doctors call it. Not to overly repeat what I wrote earlier this year, but my mother died peacefully, her two sons with her and holding her hands. It was not before her time; there were no unsaid words, no lingering animosities. Given the steadily increased dementia, I had said multiple goodbyes over the years to her steadily decreasing personality, knowing that on every return, there would be that bit less to say hello to in turn. In its own cruel way, maybe that helped with the final goodbye.
But allowing that we all have to go sometime, then making it to the age of 90, taking your last breath in your bed with your sons at hand, leaving your affairs in order and with love in your heart, seems … well, special. I have been remarkably at peace with it in the months since. My heart goes out to everyone I have spoken to in that time who did not have such pleasant experiences with the deaths of their parents. I can and do empathize: my dad’s departure at age 60 was premature and unpleasant in all senses. So, I have my gratitude.
2) Paula’s cancer diagnosis – which she wrote about recently for her friends on Facebook so it is not a complete secret - came about only because of the car accident we had last year. The hospital we were taken to performed a CT scan to confirm there were no internal ruptures and in the process found something on her left lung. It turned out to be Stage 1 cancer, which has now been successfully removed along with half of that lung, resulting in a further all-clear once the pathology reports came back. For the speed of medical care, for the quality of that medical care, we have much to be incredibly grateful for, and we know not everyone is that fortunate. For the fact that, as you would hope for a public school teacher of 30 years standing, Paula was covered for her month of convalescence, we are also grateful, though dealing both with the physical and emotional aspects of that recovery process is no walk in the park. The fact that the car accident may have saved her from something far worse, however, only confirms that the universe moves in mysterious ways. (If the universe can explain the lung cancer itself – she does not smoke, FYI – that would also be appreciated.)
3) My older son’s physical ailment, which we thought was bursitis picked up in the process of moving apartments, is annoying, as it is preventing him from sitting comfortably to work. But he is a cheerful young man with minimal needs in life, and the fact that he is now living with someone in harmony and happiness and lots of laughter makes him – and me – happy. He is not one to complain.
As for the younger son, it’s a disappointment, given that he went off to SUNY Purchase with the best of intentions, having gained entry into a top-notch program, and that his first year appeared to go quite well. But his situation is far from unique. In fact, while I was in the UK, knowing he was 3000 miles away and unhappy in his environment, I actively asked around, and it seemed that the majority of my fellow parents have kids who switched schools for a variety of reasons, or changed plans entirely. I even met a couple of those offspring, who appear to have turned out just great. My family has work cut out for itself here with the younger one, and the road ahead may continue to be a little bumpy, but knowing that others have trod a similarly rocky path and come out the other side gives me confidence it will all resolve. As The Smiths once sang, “These Things Take Time.”
4) As for the friend who died recently – Mike Peters – it still feels too damn early. But he was, and will always remain a stellar example on the subject of “Life And How To Live It,” as well as how “Living Well Is The Best Revenge.” I wrote about his incredible 30-year fight against leukemia – blood cancer – in a tribute a couple of weeks ago, highlighting the work of his foundation Love Hope Strength, but there was something I missed in the process.
In a post to his audience on December 1, Mike admitted to the failure of chemotherapy to send his cancer into complete remission, meaning he could not receive a stem cell transplant, and stating that “In 2025, I will have been living with the disease for thirty years and in all that time I have had to face the fact that my form of Leukemia was incurable.” He then announced that he would be starting experimental treatment in the New Year. But rather than dwell on the fact that the odds were not in his favor, he bigged up the chance that still existed. “Now, following the unexpected Richters’s Transformation and the new intervention of CAR-T, I have a 40% chance of being cured.”
The greater odds won, but Mike’s determination to defy the odds had kept him alive thirty years, and his willingness to be part of the experiment means future leukemia sufferers will surely find those odds switched in the not-too-distant future. As Mike Peters said in his final words on our podcast interview together:
“Life is precious. Having ten more minutes is a gift. And sometimes in the passing through cancer life can reveal itself to be incredibly beautiful.. And they are the moments to strive for. If you can find love hope strength within yourself to stay alive one more day, to tell your wife ‘I love you’ one more time or to hold your child’s hand, that’s worth a million pounds. I always say to everybody, if you have the right mindset with cancer you can always beat it, you might not outrun it fully but you might be able to get one more yard out of the journey you didn’t know you had in you. And in that one yard is a lot of beauty.”
Somewhere buried in this winter’s assault of adversity is my own story. Proof that we all come to a college degree only when we are good and ready, I have finally become what the Americans call an Undergraduate. (For those who don’t know, I left school at 16; this was not uncommon in the UK in 1980.) It was a massive struggle staying up with the final semester of work while in the UK, what with so many distractions and without the comfort of my Good Old Desk, but fortunately all three of my final courses seemed to be related to each other and I just about held on. In the three weeks after my return, even as we juggled Paula’s operation and her convalescence, and even as I realized my younger son would not see his own semester through, I kept my head down and saw out my Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary/Multimedia Studies, with a concentration in Writing About Global Culture and Music, graduating summa cum laude, which apparently – I hated Latin back at secondary school – is a good thing.
Last Friday, at the ripe old age of 61, I donned cap and gown for the first and possibly last time of my life at a formal graduation ceremony in Albany, the State capital, alongside hundreds of others who “attended” SUNY’s Empire State University, a state-wide branch of the State University designed very much for those of us who are not at the age nor have the ability to physically attend a full-time college. Much as when I received my citizenship in Albany eighteen years ago, we formed a pretty wonderful mosaic of colors, age ranges, and genders. (Though I was among the oldest to take the stage at the Albany ceremony, we were informed that the full age range of this year’s graduates across the State extended from 18-75). A number of new Undergrads took to the stage with a small child in tow, and many of them had stories – like, real stories – about the obstacles they had faced in life and the sacrifices required to attain a degree later down the line. I have almost none by comparison. I bow to their greater achievements.
I will say how much I enjoyed the process of learning at this later stage in life. Although I went into it all primarily just because I wanted the degree, I was able to pick courses in a multitude of subjects that intrigued me, which informed me, and which helped, I believe, make me a better learner and hopefully a smarter person too. I will almost miss the varied course work and the deadlines but for now, it’s time to pin that degree on my resume/CV and get back to earning some money.
And so I wax positive. Though a big part of me longs to be deposited on a beach somewhere, with books, a full cooler, a sun umbrella, and no phone, I am finishing this post from Newark airport, as I set off for something that in the moment, feels that much better: flying back to London for a week, for the FA Cup Final and a few days of R&R – and rock & roll – and more football, and friends and food and fun either side of the Big Match. Those that know what Palace means to me, know. For those who don’t, my post on Saturday, ahead of the day Final, will explain all.
Unlike my sudden flight home in January, I have not had to pack funeral clothes, just club colors. I depart New York not with heavy heart, but a happy one. I do not have to search out life scrapbooks for a remembrance service, only happy memories of a lifetime of following my club. There will be no mourning, only a sense of incredible achievement. I have no recording sessions, no big business meetings. I am not carrying my precious guitar and a full suitcase for winter, just an expandable backpack with spring clothing. Yes, I wish my mother could see Palace win a trophy, but not half as much as I wish she could have known I was finally taking a degree. And I do desperately wish I could stay this time just long enough for Mike’s funeral, but sadly I can not. Still, if these are my only regrets, again I feel fortunate. In the meantime, I hope you can find your own positives as you battle on through this crazy journey we call life. Because, yeah, living well is the best revenge.
Inspiring post, Tony! Have a great trip, and here’s to a Palace victory!
Congrats on your graduation Tony!
Thank you for this inspiring letter.