- It always bothers me when people apologize
for getting emotional.
You see it all the time in award shows et cetera,
the person comes up and they wipe their eye
and they go, I'm sorry.
Don't ever apologize for getting emotional,
it just means you are that much closer
to what's meaningful in your life.
I grew up in Chicago, Northwest side of the city.
Very typical upbringing,
just a brick bungalow, very modest.
I had two very supportive parents.
I had a mother who told me constantly
how special I was.
She would say to me very often,
my son,
you are meant to do great things in this world.
The world will know your name
and boy did that light a fire underneath me.
I, from a very early age was a very serious kid.
If I got anything less than 100% on a test,
I got very upset.
I got straight As, I was the class president,
I was the founder of the Intercultural Relations Group.
I was the lead in the school plays
and my goal was to be a famous actor,
then the first Polish-Mexican American president
of the United States,
and then, I was going to end racism.
That was what I was going to do.
Then, I got into the real world.
Now, the difference for me was,
I had this cheerleader, I had this woman, my mom,
constantly would dust me off, get rid of my self-doubt
and push me back out there.
About seven years ago, my mom calls me
and she says, there seems to be a little bit of cancer,
but it's gonna easily be removed, it'll be fine.
She gets operated on,
and I think I'm just gonna be home for a few weeks
over the holidays, I'm gonna help take care of her,
then when she's fine, I will head back to LA.
Before I know it,
I'm helping her urinate through a tube
because they've removed her bladder.
The word metastasized comes up
and for anybody who's ever dealt with cancer,
you know what that means.
It means it's not going away and it's spreading.
It's February, just a couple months later
and the lights are dim in the hospital room,
everyone has left to give me some privacy
and the only sound, that of her heart monitor
and her shallow breath, and I'm holding her hand.
And I'm saying, it's okay.
We're gonna be fine.
You can go now.
I love you.
Goodbye.
As difficult as it is,
that moment is everything to me now.
I always go back to that moment of holding her hand
as the most authentic and real thing I've ever experienced.
Ever since seven years ago,
my emotions live right beneath the surface at all times.
I take great pride in exactly who I am,
and what I feel, and when I'm feeling something so real,
that just, it's the closest thing you have
to the reasons why we're alive.