{"id":21629,"date":"2026-03-11T11:29:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T11:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/guideposts-classics-william-gargan-on-the-blessings-of-acceptance\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:12:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:12:34","slug":"guideposts-classics-william-gargan-on-the-blessings-of-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/entertainment\/movies-and-tv\/guideposts-classics-william-gargan-on-the-blessings-of-acceptance\/","title":{"rendered":"Guideposts Classics: William Gargan on the Blessings of Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a question that, sooner or later, all of us seem to ask. When things go against us, when trouble comes or sickness or heartache, our hands go out in a gesture of bewilderment and we ask:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy me?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Or perhaps you\u2019ve heard it as \u201cWhat have I done to deserve this?\u201d Or \u201cWhy pick on me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago it was my turn to complain to God<\/a> in just those words \u2014\u201cWhy me?”\u2014and yet I could phrase them only in my mind. I lay m a Los Angeles hospital unable to talk. The only way I could communicate words was to write them. My larynx\u2014or voice box\u2014had been removed and I lay there deep, deep in depression.<\/p>\n

Here I was, an actor who could not speak. It was like being an athlete who could not run or a painter who could not see. For 35 years I\u2019d been in the entertainment world, in movies, radio, stage, TV. Suddenly it all was over.<\/p>\n

Yet, I was told I had reason to be cheerful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re in good luck, Bill,\u201d the surgeon had said. \u201cCancer of the larynx is one of the most curable of all cancers. If discovered in time, we can save 90 per cent of our patients.\u201d He smiled. \u201cWe got you in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It had been an odd quirk, finding that cancer in me. I had been playing in San Francisco in a drama about politics called The Best Man<\/em>. Prophetically, I had the part of a president who was a cancer victim.<\/p>\n

We were supposed to go on to Chicago, but the play was doing so well that the management decided to keep it in San Francisco for an additional two weeks. God works in wondrous ways<\/a>. That decision saved my life. By waiting, we lost the theater in Chicago, and the show closed.<\/p>\n

Back in Los Angeles, my wife, Mary, got after me. \u201cYou have the time now to get that throat of yours looked at,\u201d she said, forcing me to a doctor\u2019s office. For weeks I\u2019d had a sore throat and couldn\u2019t shake it.<\/p>\n

The doctor told Mary, not me, about the possibility of a malignancy, and for three days she carried that fear around in her heart. Then, just before I went to hear about the results of some medical tests, Mary tried to ease me into possible bad news. Even so, I was shocked when the verdict came. I had to make a choice, the doctor said. Operate and live; don\u2019t operate and die.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen do you operate?\u201d I asked angrily. I was so hurt by the news that I was mad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a week or ten days,\u201d he replied. \u201cYou\u2019ll need time to put your affairs in order and \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI need 24 hours,\u201d I said forcefully. \u201cIf you can\u2019t take me then, I\u2019m going down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

We settled on 36 hours.<\/p>\n

It is true that when you know that death is near, life becomes intense and you live rapidly and deeply. And you learn things, too, which in all the years before you have not learned. I learned in the confusion of that day and a half that I was unafraid of death.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have far to go to talk to God in those 36 hours; He was no stranger. I talked to Him with the same prayer I have used each day<\/a> for as long as I can remember:<\/p>\n

Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, whilst before Thy face I humbly kneel, and with burning soul, pray and beseech Thee to fix deep in my heart, live sentiments of faith, hope and charity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the time I went into the operating room, I was calm and confident. I remember the last words I spoke. They were for Mary. I looked up at her. \u201cI love you,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

And so the operation was a success, and there I lay in the hospital, totally depressed<\/a>. I had not feared dying, but now I was afraid to live. Only a few days before my religion had been my strength but now, in self-pity, I began to weaken.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy me, God?\u201d I asked with lips that brought forth no sound. \u201cIs this some penance You\u2019re exacting for something I\u2019ve done wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

Every day, many times a day, I continued to say my prayers, but in the gloom I suffered from the injustice I felt had been done me.<\/p>\n

In a few weeks the doctor announced, \u201cYou\u2019re snapping back so fast, I\u2019m going to make arrangements for your speech lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took out my pad and pencil. \u201cAre you nuts?\u201d I wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cEsophageal speech,\u201d he said and went out.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever heard of it,\u201d I wrote on my pad, anyway.<\/p>\n

So there I was propped up in bed looking like a chipmunk\u2014my face was still puffed up from the operation\u2014when a lady named Teckla Tibbs came in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come to let you hear what esophageal speech sounds like,\u201d she said in a hoarse, mechanical-sounding voice. I must have stared at her somewhat peculiarly. \u201cYou won\u2019t talk any better than I do, Bill, but at least,\u201d she said gruffly, \u201cyou\u2019ll talk like a member of your own sex!\u201d Her eyes twinkled and for the first time in weeks I felt like laughing.<\/p>\n

Teckla Tibbs went on to explain the basic facts of being a laryngectomee. She wore a large flat gold necklace around the lower part of her neck which covered the stoma or hole a surgeon had created in order to join the trachea to it. Since there was no longer any connection between the mouth or nose and the lungs, she breathed, coughed and sneezed through that opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo a large degree I\u2019ve lost my sense of taste and smell, as you probably have,\u201d she told me, \u201cbut I can do almost anything I could do before\u2014except swim.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the talking I wanted to learn about. She gave me some literature and after reading it, I began to feel the wonderful warmth of hope kindling inside me.<\/p>\n

As soon as I was able to go home, the American Cancer Society<\/a> telephoned, asking when I could come for my first speech lesson. I went immediately.<\/p>\n

It was a grueling half hour in which I struggled in vain to make even the tiniest sound. Esophageal speech is a complicated process of developing false muscles, of forcing air into the esophagus so that its walls vibrate and cause a low-pitched sound. I\u2019d take a sip of water and try to get the air down with it. I\u2019d get the water down and eventually the air with it, but I couldn\u2019t produce the sound I was supposed to be able to make.<\/p>\n

At home I practiced desperately. Day after day, Mary worked with me. \u201cIf you ask him a question and he doesn\u2019t try to speak, turn your back on him,\u201d the doctors told her. Later, Mary said that was the hardest thing of all for her to do.<\/p>\n

It got so that my friends would come in and work with me. Pat O\u2019Brien<\/a>, Jack Haley, Charlie Ruggles, Dennis Day<\/a>, Ed Delaney\u2014those guys spent hours trying to force a sound out of me. My old pal, Irving Pinsky of Queens, would call me long distance and demand that I talk to him.<\/p>\n

In time, sounds came. First a gasp and a burp and then an \u201cah\u201d and then an \u201cee,\u201d and then gradually I began to manipulate these \u201cahs\u201d and \u201cees\u201d and \u201cohs\u201d into words.<\/p>\n

Sixteen lessons later I graduated from speech class with a new voice. My teachers approved, but they urged me never to sing a song unless I wanted to empty a theater. Their joke suggested a problem which I had all but forgotten. I had a new voice, but it was not an actor\u2019s voice. How was I to spend my time?<\/p>\n

Once again the American Cancer Society was on the phone. Would I make a speech on their behalf? This time it wasn\u2019t necessary to scribble out the question \u201cAre you nuts?\u201d I didn\u2019t ask it, either, but I wanted to. Still, I thought, nobody has misled me yet. They must know what they are doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d I agreed.<\/p>\n

Once again I felt the excitement of stage fright<\/a>. Some 20 people were there at a luncheon in Palm Springs when I was introduced. I was worried, not knowing if my voice would work or if I could be heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnaccustomed as I am to public speaking,\u201d I began. There was a laugh and I relaxed. I was home free.<\/p>\n

After that the ACS asked if I would help in their fund-raising campaign. That year we managed to triple the quota in Palm Springs. Then I started speaking before \u201cLost Chord\u201d clubs and other groups of laryngectomees the country over. There are approximately 20,000 of us in the United States today (about ten men to every one woman) and the clubs help new members over those first difficult months.<\/p>\n

To sport my stuff again, to show off my special skill before newcomers and give them hope, was more thrilling to me than any play I\u2019d ever been in.<\/p>\n

Today I roam all over the country volunteering my services as a speaker. When I tell people that a checkup once a year and a close watch for the seven danger signals could cut cancer deaths by 50 per cent, they\u2019re more inclined to follow my simple advice because of my raspy voice.<\/p>\n

In this simple way, I am doing something to help others. I believe that God forever is creating such opportunities for us,<\/a> but often we are too involved in ourselves to grasp them. That\u2019s why the next time I\u2019m inclined to complain with a petulant \u201cWhy me?”\u2014I\u2019ll change that quickly to:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not me, God?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a question that, sooner or later, all of us seem to ask. When things go against us, when trouble comes or sickness or heartache, our hands go out in a gesture of bewilderment and we ask: \u201cWhy me?\u201d Or perhaps you\u2019ve heard it as \u201cWhat have I done to deserve this?\u201d Or \u201cWhy pick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[267,270,175,185],"tags":[66,57,15,16,58,11,30],"ppma_author":[1054],"class_list":["post-21629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-stories","category-living-with-cancer","category-movies-and-tv","category-stories-of-faith-and-hope","tag-cancer","tag-creativity","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-guideposts","tag-helping-others","tag-prayer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGuideposts Classics: William Gargan on the Blessings of Acceptance - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guideposts Classics: William Gargan on the Blessings of Acceptance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a question that, sooner or later, all of us seem to ask. 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