I am 29 years old.  I suffered a generalized seizure on December 19, 2003.  My first memory of this event is paramedics carting me onto an ambulance, at which point I did not know my name, my accompanying fiancée's name, where I was, or anything about myself.  It was easily the most frightening moment of my life -- the kind of raw, absolute, unbridled terror that only exists in the most horrific of nightmares.

At the emergency room, it was discovered that I have an extremely sizable left brain tumor.  The first doctor to see my CAT scans and MRIs informed my fiancée and parents that I might have just 6 months to live.

That was 8 months ago, and I have proven him wrong. With my new medical team and chemotherapy, I continue to battle this illness every day.  But I am also realistic.  I know courage and attitude alone cannot defeat nature, and that existing medicines might not be enough to save me.

What sickens me is that it isn't fantasy to hope for other chances and breakthroughs. We have opportunities at our fingertips if we remove blockades and expand stem cell research, but they're being stifled, despite what Mr. Bush and his wife declare.

I acknowledge that expanded stem cell research does not guarantee a cure for my disease, but I declare that the possibilities -- the chance it might save me and so many others worse off -- are more important than the conflicts one leader has with this because of his religion. (A leader whose country has roots in "the separation of Church and State").

I think of my late grandfather, a gentle saint of a man. I think of the diabetes that ravaged him to the point he could no longer walk. And then I think of his accompanying Alzheimer's which made him continually forget that he could no longer stand.  In tandem, the two diseases made a man who once ran 5 miles a day become one who repeatedly tried to exit his wheelchair only to fall on his face, panicked and bewildered.  The horrors of disease made him pitiful and turned the last years of his golden life into a nightmare the likes of which no human should ever be subjected to.

I was unable to come to New York to air these grievances and even larger ones (expanded stem cell research may be the issue that hits closest home for me, but is not remotely the issue I care most about). 

Close friends in Manhattan raised their voices even louder to compensate for my absence, but I also looked forward to Mr. Kinberg's peaceful protest.  I hoped my message would find its chalky water-soluble way to a New York sidewalk.  I hoped it might be read by an undecided voter, a member of the media, a Republican delegate, or an elected leader.

...but then authority impeded to strip Mr. Kinberg of his right to speak and my right to speak through him.  It stole his equipment from him like slicing the larynx straight from both his throat and mine.

Mr. Kinberg's case is likely to be dismissed, but that doesn't pacify my disgust, it doesn't quell my anger.  It doesn't make America America.
 
It doesn't make New York New York.

Sincerely,
Matthew J. Reichl

Los Angeles, CA

matthewjreichl AT yahoo.com