Arnold E. Katz, MD, FACS

The seeds of this book were planted in my psyche at age sixteen by Alec Guinness, when he spoke the following words in the 1957 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture— The Bridge on the River Kwai:

 

“It’s been a good life. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning…. and you wonder…. you ask yourself what the sum total of your life represents…. what difference your being there at any time made to anything or if it made any difference at all really.”

 

As I became older, I thought: “How would I be remembered? How would my children view the sum total of my life? Would they know what I loved, what was important to me, and which lessons I hoped they would learn?” I decided to publish a document for my children.

 

Upon retirement, I began studying Memoir Writing and Poetry at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Stony Brook.

I quickly learned that writing for me was more a mirror than a window; and many times I seemed to be meeting myself for the first time. Previously unrecognized insights were crystalizing and created an even greater desire for me to pass on the knowledge I had obtained from my life experiences as a surgeon, a medical school professor, a flight surgeon, a captain in the navy, a temple president, a student of mythology, an author, a poet, a friend, a son, a brother, a husband, and a father. “It’s been a good life…. but there are times…”