The Kindness of Others

I arrived in Cairo, in 1997, on the same day that sixty-two tourists were massacred in Luxor. I was on my honeymoon with my first husband. While most countries sent a few 747s to evacuate their nationals, for some reason, the United States did not. When I called the embassy the next day, they simply advised me not to travel into Upper Egypt. That was the extent of their recommendation, but I had no intention of letting that stop me. I had dreamed of exploring the Valley of the Kings my entire life, and we were determined to forge ahead, no matter what obstacles lay in our path.

The next morning, I woke up with numbness in my left hand. At first, I thought I had just slept on it funny, but the numbness worsened. After ten days in Egypt, it had spread down my entire left side. I was struggling to hold my head up and finding it difficult to walk. We decided to cut our trip short. As soon as we landed in Los Angeles, we went straight to the acute care department at a local university hospital. After being admitted for tests, I was told I had a demyelinating disease—whatever that was. A few years later, I was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

By the time I returned home from Cairo, my mobility had significantly declined. I couldn’t feed myself, I couldn’t feel my feet on the ground, and I couldn’t even sense my head on the pillow. The steroids I had been prescribed came with horrendous side effects and nightmares. Some nights, it was easier to stay awake watching documentaries on the atrocities at Auschwitz than to attempt sleep. The medication made me extremely agitated. My cheeks puffed up like a little chipmunk’s, I grew a mustache, and the lining of my mouth sloughed off. On the bright side, the obsessive-compulsive tendencies triggered by the steroids helped me finish my Christmas shopping well ahead of schedule. But the reality was, I felt terrible—scared and completely lost.

Illness is a strange thing, especially when it strikes someone relatively young. I was only twenty-seven. Many of us are forced to confront our mortality much earlier than we’d like. Some of my friends struggled to know how to support me, while others simply disappeared. It was all very awkward.

This was my first major flare-up, and after returning from the hospital, I had to take time off work. I was employed in the admissions office at one of the largest and most prestigious universities in California— the University of Southern California (USC). It was December, and the first large wave of student applications had just arrived.

Illness is a strange thing, especially when it strikes someone relatively young.

People at work had already been worried when they heard I was in Egypt during the massacre, and now they were even more concerned about my health. At the time, I had very few answers, so no one really knew how to respond. Then, one day, I got a call from a university executive, Joe Allen. He was a vice provost, and hundreds of employees reported to him. I had always admired him, but I never imagined he would take a personal interest in me.

Joe insisted on visiting me. His persistence amazed me—I was just a small cog in the university machine. Yet, when he arrived, he sat with me for four hours. He didn’t try to force cheerfulness or push me into making decisions. He simply gave me space, allowing me to talk about my situation as much or as little as I wanted. I remember wondering why he stayed so long and worrying that I was keeping him from his important work. It was a Friday afternoon, and I knew it had been a tough week for everyone at the university. Maybe he needed that quiet, reflective time just as much as I needed his care and presence.

A new resolve awakened in me: I would not let my illness define me.

By the time he left, I was utterly exhausted—but something inside me had shifted. I felt a deep sense of peace. As I reflected on our conversation, I had a realization: I must be worth something if he took the time to visit me and stayed that long.

That afternoon changed my life. Joe had given me an incredible gift—the permission to believe I might be worth something—and at that moment, I needed that more than anything else in the world. It felt good. It felt kind. It felt empowering. A new resolve awakened in me: I would not let my illness define me. I would not live as a victim. I would live the way I wanted—not according to others’ expectations. Most importantly, he had given me permission to start thinking about what I wanted out of life. That realization has stayed with me ever since.

And to think—he had done nothing more than visit me over a cup of tea. Yet, it made all the difference.

Three years later, Joe suffered a stroke and passed away at the age of fifty-three. Whenever I tell this story, whenever I think of him, or whenever I reflect on where my journey truly began, I am moved to tears.