Why This Report?
REASON #1
I once had a daughter named Roxie. She was here one moment, gone the next. Some days I swear it was all just a six-year dream. Roxie was everything I ever wanted in a child, everything missing in my life before she arrived and everything missing in my life after she was killed. Roxie was alive when she sunk to the bottom of a summer camp swimming pool and dead when she resurfaced minutes later. Gross negligence and fraud ruled that morning. And now they rule my every moment of every day for the rest of my life. My wife and I launched a drowning prevention and camp safety foundation in her honor. We will not relent until adults embrace their responsibilities and until these preventable deaths and injuries are eradicated.
REASON #2
#2: I was four classes into a Harvard graduate studies program in journalism when I received a call that no parent should ever receive. When I resurfaced days later, I informed Harvard that I needed to withdraw from the semester while I determined whether I could survive the agony. Candidly, that is an open-ended question. However, I remembered how Roxie persisted through a serious, rare and, what would have been, lifelong immunodeficiency disorder. She did so with extraordinary courage, never excusing herself from a day of homework or support of a friend in need. Our favorite word was “persistence.” I re-enrolled and never looked back. This report is my capstone. I complete my studies December of 2020. And I walk on Harvard Square in the spring.
