My latest book, A Reason To Live, was really more of a journey than a written exercise. An odyssey which started with an unfortunate trip to the hospital where I was informed that I should remain very calm so as not to give myself a heart attack. The very words "heart attack" are lethal in their ability to instill fear, and I recall, I did stay fairly still although "calm" was not what was happening on the inside of me. A small five year old child was screaming inside my head, "I am not ready to die! Not yet!" Sitting in the hospital bed for days on end gave me the time I needed to take stock of my life up to that point. It gave me a moment of solitude to reflect about where I was, where I was headed and what was important, and that is how the book was born - in a hospital bed amidst rumbled sheets, a tousled beard and a laptop sitting atop my legs on some starchy white pillows. In the hours between the needles, meds and doctors, I wrote, the keyboard clicking away in the dimly lit room, about twenty people, places and things I think are important. The list was smaller on some days and much, much larger on others, but in the end, I narrowed it down to my most favorite and meaningful twenty. My people, places and things that matter.