Sandy & Chris Pablo

My hanai brother, Chris Pablo, was memorialized yesterday.  It was a final public sendoff for a man who is the heart and soul of my book, The Marrow in Me.  The picture on the cover is of me recreating Chris Pablo’s great golf ball discovery.  For those who need a refresher, or those who are new to my blog and The Marrow in Me story, Chris found a special ball in his basket at the driving range some 14 years ago.  The ball had the words BEAT LEUKEMIA stamped on the side.   Chris was diagnosed with the same disease just weeks prior.  Finding the ball gave him hope that he would find a cure for his cancer.  He did, with a bone marrow transplant that came from a man missing most of his legs.

By the time we got around to creating the cover shot of The Marrow in Me, Chris wasn’t well enough to do it.  So I did it for him.  We’d lose Chris a month after the book was released, but he had a chance to read through much of it.  He called to playfully scold me, “You kept me up all night and made me cry,” he said a few months back.

I’d be honored if you’d read the book to get to know the man behind the video clip below.  Without Chris I never would have been a bone marrow donor myself.  And because of Chris sharing his story, 86 other people searching for a bone marrow donor got their match and went to transplant too.  The book is inspiring, witty, tragic and triumphant.  Some have compared it to Tuesdays with Morrie.  A sizable chunk of the proceeds is going to cancer treatment and research programs, including The Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry, which played a key role in Chris’s transplant and mine.  And if you really want to honor Chris, please click here to register as a potential bone marrow donor.  That’s probably the best way we can honor his memory.  Aloha and Mahalo, Kevin.       

Watch Video Clip of Chris Pablo Memorial

So I’m thinking about some of the cooler gifts and gift giving traditions.  Were it not for my friend, Mary Mitchell, who’s the author of several etiquette publications including the The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Etiquette, I would have forgotten to take care of some of the people around me who make my life easier; namely service people.  I gave my dry cleaning deliverer, Teri, a gift certificate to The Gap.  I gave my mailman, Jim, a copy of The Marrow in Me and a gift card to Dunkin’ Donuts. 

But I still think the coolest holiday tradition I can remember is what people in Hawaii did for the trash collectors.  Residents would leave a couple of cases of beer and soda, but mostly beer out on the curb with  the trash around Christmas.  The trash guys would load the truck up, and divvy up the largesse when they got back to the dump.  The average guy would take home about 25 cases of beer.  Depending on your consumption, I think most people would be set for the year.  And of course the best beer is free beer.  

Then some dorks got their leis in a bunch and complained that public vehicles shouldn’t be hauling around alcohol.  So the trash guys would have a pal drive a pickup behind the trash truck and would load up the beer just the same.  I dunno maybe Jim The Mailman and my trash guys in Wellesley would like the gift of beer better than coffee and donuts.  America may run on Dunkin’ but really which would you rather have, brewed beans or brewed hops?   

The golf ball that started a revolution and the man who found it, Chris Pablo

We lost a very good friend who found a most interesting golf ball that took on a life of its own years ago.  Chris Pablo died in Honolulu yesterday at the age of 59, from complications of cancer unrelated to his original leukemia diagnosis back in 1996.  I’ve blogged about Chris before and I wrote a book about his life and mine called The Marrow in Me.  I won’t pretend that everyone has been with me from the beginning, so I’ll include a little background.  

Chris is the man who found an amazing golf ball that sparked my journey to becoming a bone marrow donor and author of The Marrow in Me.

 Click here for Chris Pablo Tribute.

Chris found the golf ball in his basket years ago.  It was old, discolored and had the words beat leukemia stamped on the side.  Chris was diagnosed with leukemia just three weeks prior.  Together and with the help of plenty of others in the Hawaii media, Chris and I told the Hawaii Community about his efforts to find an unrelated bone marrow donor.   People couldn’t get enough of the golf ball hook.  Chris’s story inspired other leukemia patients like two-year-old Alana Dung to come forward.  The community responded and largely because of Chris and Alana, 30-thousand people registered as potential bone marrow donors.  Eighty-six people went to transplant, including me; for a 16-year-old boy I’d never met.  Chris found his lifesaving match from a legless man who saw the media coverage.  Alana found her match in an international registry.

Alana Dung, inspired 30,000 people to register as potential donors

Chris had been sick for the last several months, but well enough a few months back to come to Boston to visit colleges with his youngest son Zack and family.   He called me and told me we should get together.  I suspected it might be our last chance to see each other.  It was.  I was so glad to see him one last time and my young daughters were thrilled to finally meet the man Daddy’s been writing about in The Marrow in Me for all these years.  My picture of Chris and my girls sitting on the steps of the old Boston Police Station is one of my treasures and it’s included in the book with a note directly to Chris in the epilogue.  Before the book went to print I emailed him the pdf file.  “You kept me up all night and made me cry,” he said when he called the next day.

When Chris took a turn for the worse in October I rushed him one of the first printed copies of my book The Marrow in Me.  I wanted him to hold it in his hands before his time.  His wife Sandy says he did.  That just meant the world to me and so did his friendship.  Without that crazy golf ball I never would have become a bone marrow donor and certainly wouldn’t have written a book about it.

L to R, Amanda Walsh, Chris Pablo, Samantha Walsh. Boston, August 2009

Chris taught me so much about obligation, “the obligation of survivorship” as he called it.  He taught me it’s okay and effective to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of people.  When a man tells you something like that with tears in his eyes, it’s profound and people listen.  Chris’s courage and love for his family planted the seed in me to be the type of father and husband I hope I’ve become.  I could go on and on, but you get the point.  We lost a very good man and for that I am so sad.    

Chris Pablo and Kevin Walsh, Washington, September 2008

I’ve had a very emotional day and I’m not afraid to admit it.  Man tears are a weird thing.  You feel less manly when you cry, at least I do.  It carves at your toughness.  But I feel better afterward because of the release.  Maybe women and girls are on to something here.

  Play video

I was on New England Cable News being interviewed by Latoyia Edwards for my book,  The Marrow in Me.  She asked about the boy who received my marrow in a transplant.  It was a close call.  I thought she was going to lose it a couple of times.  I kinda sorta lost it for a moment myself.  But we made it through.

Chris Pablo & Me, Washington, September 2008

We were also talking in the interview extensively about my friend in Hawaii, Chris Pablo.  Chris found a life saving bone marrow match in a man who lost his legs in a Good Samaritan accident years earlier.  Chris is the life and soul behind The Marrow in Me.  Without Chris I never would have become a bone marrow donor and I most certainly would not have written a book.   

Chris beat leukemia but suffered a setback a few months back with another form of cancer.  He sent me a note about two weeks ago that he was in the hospital and having a hard time.   Sensing that he might be failing I e-mailed him the pdf file of my book because there were some things that I had written about him that I wanted him to see before it was too late.   The next day I got an email and a phone call from Chris.  ”You made me cry and I was up all night reading what you sent me.  Thank you for saying such nice things about my family Kevin,” he shared.

The book just came off the presses and I got my author copies of the book on Monday.  I sent out my very first bound copy to Chris because I wanted it in his hands.  Mail to Hawaii from the East Coast is notoriously slow.  This morning after that interview on TV, I came home to find a very sad email from Chris’s wife Sandy on my computer.   It was word that Chris had taken a dramatic turn for the worse and that family members were flying in from around the country to be by his side.

L to R. Samantha Walsh, Amanda Walsh, Zack Pablo, Sandy Pablo, Nate Pablo & Chris Pablo. The Pablos visited Boston in August 2009. We met them in the city for breakfast. It's the first and only time my daugthers met Chris.

The news about Chris crushed me, and selfishly I must admit I was sad that my dream to have the bound copy of the book in his hands before his passing appeared lost.  Then I got another e-mail from Sandy Pablo  minutes later while I was having my difficult moment.  “I was walking out the door to go the hospital and your book came in the mail.  I took it to Chris.  He’s kind of out of it now (illness & meds) but he knew what it was,” she wrote.

And with that I completely lost it.  How that book got there that fast I can only imagine.  I’m losing a friend as I write right now and it hurts.  But he gave me one last gift.  My dream of having him hold The Marrow in Me in his hands is complete.  God bless you Chris and your family.  Aloha.

Talk about coming full circle.  I used to deliver The Times Chronicle in my Meadowbrook, PA neighborhood.  I think I got like 30-cents a delivery back then.  Today a feature story about the boy who never missed your driveway–ok well maybe a couple of times.

I’ve been telling a lot of stories to people lately. No actually the same story over and over to a lot of  different people. I guess that kind of comes with the territory prior to a book release. I have but a couple of heroes in the world. One is my friend, Chris Pablo. Years ago Chris found an interesting golf ball in his basket at the driving range of Ko’olau Golf Club on the windward side of Oahu, Hawaii. 

Chris plucked the old, discolored ball out to inspect it. It was a cruddy ball that most of us would have kicked aside. As he was turning the ball on its side Chris saw the words beat leukemia looking back at him. It would have been a great find for anyone, but for Chris it was, as they say in Pidgin ‘Moah Bettuh’. You see three weeks earlier Chris was diagnosed with leukemia. Despite great odds against finding a matching bone marrow donor outside his family, the golf ball discovery gave Chris hope that he would find someone somewhere who would save his life. He did, a man who lost large portions of his legs in a Good Samaritan accident. Chris received his transplant from the double amputee in 1996 and is alive today. It was Chris’s courage and the bravery of others that inspired me to register as a potential bone marrow donor. As fate would have it, I too became a rare bone marrow match for a 16-year-old leukemia patient whom I’d never met. Chris came to visit me and my family recently in Boston and he brought along his golf ball. Hard to imagine such profound journeys all started with a ball in a basket. That’s no ka ‘oi. Hawaiian for the best. You can read about it in my book The Marrow in Me. Available with major retailers next month, The Marrow in Me can be previewed and pre-ordered now online. It’s easy to remember, the book title is the website, http://www.themarrowinme.com/.