I just finished Swimming Across, a memoir of Andrew Grove, founder of Intel and Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. This is a truly inspiring and motivational story, a must-read.
After Andris nearly loses his life to scarlet fever at the age of four, his family is forced to deal with the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Fleeing the Germans, Andris and his mother find refuge with a Christian family in the outskirts of Budapest and then hide in cellars from Russian bombs. After the nightmare of war ends, the family rebuilds its business and its life, only to face a new trial with a succession of repressive Communist governments.
In June 1956, the popular Hungarian uprising is put down at gunpoint. Soviet troops occupy Budapest and randomly round up young people. Two hundred thousand Hungarians follow a tortuous route to escape to the West. Among them is the author ...
This story is beautiful. It's a story of courage, dedication, strength, determination, will, commitment, etc. I do want to share one part of the memoir that touched me the most (literally made me teary):
My father brought home some pictures he had managed to keep with him throughout all his years in the war and captivity. They were wallet-size studio photographs of my mother and me, taken before he left just so he could have a picture of us with him while he was away. My father treasured these pictures; they never left his body. They gave him strength when he needed it most. In his darkest moments, when it looked like he would not make it, he used the backs of the pictures to scribble his good-bye messages to us.
I read these notes over and over. One of them that my father wrote near the end of the war particularly touched me. It was dated April 1945. "My dear ones: Now that it looks like the end would be here and the prospect of seeing you again, I have had another setback--- a new disease, some skin ulcers. It's spreading from one day to the next. There is no medicine. They don't know how to treat it. It's slow death. It looks like struggles of the last three years were for nothing. And all I would like is to see you again, to know that you are alive. But I am destroyed. Just my love for you keeps me alive. Gyurka."
He made it home five months later.
For me, this passage reminds us how strong love can be. It truly is a powerful force that makes extraordinary things happen. In modern-day society, things move and change at such a fast pace that I often feel like we don't have the time to really reflect and think about the people we love the most. This is a post dedicated to those who we cherish :)
Mr. Volenski (his favorite physics teacher) once told Andrew's parents, "Life is like a big lake. All the boys get in the water at one end and start swimming. Not all of them will swim across. But one of them, I'm sure, will. That one is Grof."
Later, the author finishes the book with "As my teacher Volenski predicted, I managed to swim across the lake --- not without effort, not without setbacks, and with a great deal of help and encouragement from others. I am still swimming."
technorati tags: swimming across, andrew grove, intel, love
Comments (1)
It's a great book.
Posted by Ben Casnocha | August 27, 2007 11:34 AM