Worst Day Ever - 1st Anniversary

Worst Day Ever…



I was in the office early because it was my 15th anniversary with Bennigan’s and we had just had a terrific St. Patrick’s Day weekend celebration the two previous days. I remember getting that phone call from my boss at about 8 am on Monday, March 19th 2007. He told me that the company was eliminating my position. For the first time in 15 years I was unemployed.


That sounds like a terrible day already doesn’t it. But Joan and I had been through our rough days before. Five years prior while selling our house we found out almost accidentally that a woman had stolen our house key and moved in illegally while Joan and I were living in an apartment waiting for our new house to be built. We were in serious trouble. But we kept our heads and maintained a united front as we made decisions that would impact the rest of our lives. We got through that, we could certainly get through this new challenge. Besides, I had known for some time that I would be in this position. I had been interviewing for months and was within reach of two excellent job offers. Not to mention that my old company was going to pay a very fair severance package. In fact I had little time to dwell on that morning’s “Wake-Up” call. I had an interview across town at 10 am.

Ironically I had started with Bennigan’s reluctantly. I had moved to upstate New York to be with Joan and was promised a job by my new Room Mate who worked at a high volume four star seafood restaurant down town. Shortly after moving I realized that I was being dragged along and went weeks with no job. Nearly everyday I drove past the Bennigan’s on Erie Blvd and sighed with a sense of inevitability. Grudgingly I filled out the application and was hired as a server. Eventually I took that little waiter job to a vehicle to travel four continents opening restaurants and training their managers from all over the world. I was running Orlando and most of the East Coast of Florida at the end. It had definitely been a good run.

It had been a good run so far for Joan and me too. We had met in 1979 and I fell madly and deeply in love with her instantly. I brag all the time that I can remember what she was wearing down to the piping on her shorts up to her retainer. She was a knockout. Through a series of unfortunate events we had been away from each other for nearly eight years when I started calling all the Donnelly’s in the phone book in Syracuse, NY where I had heard she lived. I found her, we spoke, and I fell madly and deeply in love all over again.

So my interview at 10 am was suddenly much more important that it had been when I initially set it up. It was with another restaurant company and one that I would have been proud to associate myself with. The interview included an assessment which went pretty well and the District Manager and I got along well enough for him to ask me to stick around and have something to eat with him. I was certainly looking good. As I drove home I remembered that it was also March when Joan and I moved to Orlando. I moved to New York to be with Joan, but I struggled with the ridiculous weather. A veteran of only three winters in Syracuse I was present for the coldest winter on record for Syracuse and the very next year we broke the snow fall record. Half way through the third winter I asked Joan to pick any warm city and I would convince Bennigan’s to move us there. Two months later as Syracuse broke the previous year’s snow fall record we moved to Orlando. Soon after we moved I asked her to marry me under the Space Ship Earth at EPCOT Center (because I was too afraid when we were in front of Cinderella’s Castle) and we were married in a Disney Wedding.

When I got home that day Joan was at work and there was a message on the machine. Joan had a third exploratory surgery during the previous week and we had been expecting some news from the lab. Joan was feeling as strong as ever but she noticed a lot of swelling around her lymph nodes in various parts of her body. Twice before the surgeon had removed nodes for testing and they were all filled with a fluid that was not harmful. After the surgery he had told me that the third one looked just like the others and was probably nothing to worry about, so we had not worried.

I played the message and Dr. Dubrodin’s thick Polish accent was broken by a wavering in his voice as he said nothing but to have Joan call him right away. I have heard people say that their heart fell but never knew what that meant until that day. I felt no pain but a hollowing out as though everything inside of me had been removed. I remember taking the phone in my hand and calling Joan at work to ask her to quickly call the Doctor before his office closed and hung up the phone.

As I waited for Joan to call me back I thought of her grandmothers who had both been taken by cancer; one of them from cancer in her lymph nodes. The wait was eternal.
When Joan called back she was sobbing. The news was terrible. Joan had Lymphoma and her surgeon recommended that she plan to begin chemo-therapy immediately. We were devastated.
When she came home we cried as we planned our next moves. It would be days before I even remembered that I did not have a job. Suddenly I realized how little the things around us really mattered. The massive house we live in, a 65 inch High Definition TV, our fancy cars and clothes. I did not care if I had none of those things. What I wanted was Joan. I remember so distinctly the exact moment that I realized that our worst case scenario after I lost my job was that we lose the house and cars and move in with one of our parents – both of whom we love. The worst case scenario for Joan’s illness was utterly unthinkable. Therefore Joan would survive and when we were completely sure that she would be fine I would find a job. I called the two companies that were preparing offers for me and told them that I would not be able to accept an offer.

But just as God had a plan to bring us together – twice – He had a plan for us to pursue Joan’s treatments and appointments and for me to get a new and better job. A former boss had reached out to me and eventually offered me a job making more than I had ever made and we would not have to move. My travel schedule would be cut in half and the new company, Cracker Barrel, was growing not receding. The pressure of protecting myself would be non-existent. My work situation just could not be better than where it was one year ago.


As we sit so close to the anniversary of Worst Day Ever I continue to try and draw a conclusion or make some sense of so much misfortune on one day. I think back to those two phone calls coming within hours of each other and try and draw a meaning or a specific significance from them. I can’t. Quite frankly I wonder now if we are not meant to draw a conclusion so quickly or maybe not at all. What the worst things do in life is make you realize how wonderful the good things are. Joan and I have had a story-book love and marriage. She had been my first love; we are living the American Dream. Why did it take a disaster for me to see how unbelievably amazing my life was? Norman MacClean said “When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say "more perfect" because she said if a thing is perfect it can't be more so. But by now I have seen enough of life to have regained my confidence in it.” No doubt. I wish my wife did not have cancer, but today my life is more perfect because I realize just how perfect it is.