Like so many great things, it all started with a song.
More than ten years ago, at Christmastime, I wrote a song for my wife Lindsay, who was undergoing chemotherapy. I tried to play the song for her that year, but, given the situation, with hesitant vocals and a withering acoustic guitar, neither of us had the heart for it. The song ended up on the shelf, where it collected dust for more than a decade.
Then, just after Thanksgiving last year, our lives were turned upside down. After two weeks of worsening headaches, Lindsay convinced me to go to the ER. I expected, at worst, COVID. Instead, a CT scan revealed a 3.8 cm mass deep inside my brain that turned out to be glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
And this is where the song re-enters the story.
After receiving this diagnosis and spending the next 24 hours in fetal position, I awoke in the middle of the night and it hit me: the song needed to live. It needed to be recorded and released. So I scribbled down what lyrics I could remember, recorded a rough version on my iPad, and sent it to a friend who had been experimenting with AI-generated arrangements. Less than 30 minutes later, he sent back a version that made me smile – really smile - for the first time that I could remember.
And so: it’s a Christmas song, and it’s a love song. It’s an old song, and it’s also a new song.
Enter: Team Christmas.
The goal is simple: to create a groundswell of joy, community, and music — to celebrate the season despite hardship; to honour those we love; and, perhaps boldly, to have great artist(s) hear this song, sing it, and give it life. Add it to your favourite playlist, share it with your team — and whoever your team may be, consider them drafted onto Team Christmas.
In summary, I didn’t choose this nightmare journey, and I can say that some very dark places have been available to me along the way. I’ve visited some of them and learned that nothing good grows there.
I believe that we are the sum of our choices. While many aren’t ours to make, we can always choose how we respond to the things that happen to us.
And I have chosen to live in the light.
I have chosen joy.
This isn’t always easy; no important choice ever is. But it is this choice that is helping me through the hardest chapter of my life.
