There is a lesson here, especially for parents. We spend enormous time preparing our children for academic and professional success. But how much time do we spend teaching them to choose good friends, to build deep relationships, and to become people others will want beside them during life’s darkest moments?
Another lesson is Dennis’s commitment to rational thinking. Dennis insists feelings, however powerful, must not replace reason.
Last week, he explained when he understood the severity of his condition, he saw three choices: Death, depression, or perseverance.
“I don’t want to die. I love life as much as I’ve ever loved life,” he told us gathered in Miami. Refusing to surrender to depression, he chose perseverance.
Dennis’s devotion to reason has never diminished his devotion to God. Quite the opposite. “I am not disappointed in God,” he told us. Dennis explained he has never believed God owes him protection from tragedy. He has always been more interested in what God expects of him than what he expects of God.
He acknowledged we cannot know God’s intentions. Why was Sue upstairs at the exact moment he fell, when she would normally have been downstairs? Was it divine intervention or coincidence? Dennis refused to pretend he knew.
“What I do believe is that God is with me at this painful time in my life,” Dennis said.
Dennis teaches happiness is a moral obligation and gratitude is essential to a meaningful life. Last week on stage, he was demonstrating those principles.
He spoke openly about his suffering without allowing it to define him. “My identity is Dennis, not victim,” he declared.
Think about the moral strength required to say those words when you cannot move your arms or legs and need assistance with life’s most basic activities.
One of the evening’s most moving moments came when Dennis looked out at the people who had gathered from across the country. He admitted receiving so much love was overwhelming because he had spent his life focused on giving it.
His wife and sons teared up, and many in the audience followed which brought us all together to create a brightness in the room that is almost indescribable.
It was a beautiful reminder the love we give throughout our lives has a way of finding its way back to us during our darkest moments.
Another profound part of his lecture concerned memory.
“Memory is everything. That is what makes us human,” Dennis told us.
Our memories are not simply records of the past. They are part of who we are today. The joy we experienced yesterday does not disappear because our circumstances change.
Dennis can look back at more than seven decades of happiness with gratitude rather than bitterness. His past is something to treasure, not resent.
“Gratitude is indispensable to happiness. No gratitude, no happiness. No memory, no gratitude,” Dennis said.
I realized that evening Dennis was giving everyone in that ballroom a new memory.
Years from now, we will remember the anticipation, his familiar voice, and the overwhelming emotion of watching him accomplish what once seemed nearly impossible.
Many of us also received a larger lesson for America.
Dennis dedicates his life to defending the principles that made Western civilization possible: Reason, faith, gratitude, personal responsibility, and moral clarity.
Today, many look at America and conclude the damage to our institutions and our culture is irreversible. They believe the challenges are simply too overwhelming.
But Dennis reminds us of something that applies far beyond his circumstances: Almost impossible is not impossible.
Dennis promised the audience, “This is the first time I’m giving a public talk in person, but this, I promise you, will not be the last.”
I believe him.
Dennis teaches us how to think and how to live. And last week, he taught us how to persevere.
And in doing so, he gave those of us who love him a memory we will treasure forever.
-Marissa Streit, PragerU CEO
