New Post has been published on Callagy Law
New Post has been published on http://callagylaw.com/dr-james-victor-bastek-a-man-of-true-mastery/
Dr. James Victor Bastek, a Man of True Mastery
Og Mandino, the Greatest Salesman in the World, The Scroll marked 5, I Will Live This Day as If it Were My Last.
In the afternoon of the Jessica Anna Coyle. December 10, 2002, Friday of Memorial Day weekend, 1998, Dr. Bastek walked around his incredible home in Saddle River, New Jersey. He walked from room to room, taking it all in, and then stared out into his backyard, part of his 2-acre family home that he had purchased from America’s diet queen Jenny Craig.
There was so much to be thankful and to reflect upon.
Dr. Bastek was born in Jersey City to parents, Caroline and Adam, that had not graduated from high school. Adam had a degenerative eye disease that prevented him from ever having a catch with Dr. Bastek, who they affectionately referred to as Jimmy.
Jimmy was the oldest of 5, with four sisters: Maureen, Barbara, Denise, and Diane.
There was a lot of love in their tiny home, and a lot of craziness with not only 5 children, but a total of 17 first cousins always running around the house and neighborhood. It was family first.
Jimmy with the encouragement of his Mom and Dad, and the Catholic private school education they somehow miraculously scrimped and saved to provide developed incredible discipline and a world-class relentless work ethic.
He went through St. Peter’s Prep, St. Peter’s college, and ended up with a double Master’s degree in Math and Computer science.
In his first job working for Exxon Corporation, he made more than his parents or uncles ever did.
He was an incredible success in the eyes of his entire family.
He felt though, as he sat in an Exxon office working in Canada, that he had so much more to offer the world, as well as feeling the pain of his father going blind and being disabled.
He decided to go back to undergrad to take his pre-med courses to help fight to save people’s vision.
The journey to becoming a doctor would be difficult. The gauntlet to becoming a retina surgeon would be virtually impossible.
In the 1970’s, medical schools openly engaged in age discrimination. And, Jimmy was too old by their standards. Despite this fact, he would later tell people he had such a clear vision that reminded him of the “Manifest Destiny” he had heard people discuss those going West as a grade-schooler. Jimmy was “burning the boats,” told his plans to everyone, and was going to allow nothing and no one to get in his way.
Yet, medical schools didn’t want him in his late twenties. He was considering a foreign medical school when he was accepted to one of the lowest ranked medical schools in the United States, at the time.
This positive step also was a limiting one: how would he ever get into the incredibly competitive retina programs if he was coming from such a lowly medical school?
What was worse, Jimmy was finding medical school to be all about memorization. His skill set was logic and thinking. His memory was good, but it wasn’t his greatest strength. Some students were just better equipped to memorize, and he wasn’t going to get straight A’s on classes with forced curves.
What retina program is going to accept someone from a bottom of the barrel medical school who isn’t even at the top of the class?
Well, Mastery is about finding a way, asking yourself the right questions, and re-inventing the game and the rules.
“How can I get to a retina residency program in some other way?” Jimmy asked himself.
This powerful question led him to a summer job during medical school performing research by dissecting eyeballs. Jimmy tackled this mission not to just build his resume and pass time, but to make something happen.
And, he did. That summer Jimmy made a breakthrough in the research of RP, the disease-causing his father’s, and other members of his families, blindness.
In a stunning turn of events, this kid from Jersey City was all of a sudden, as a medical student, delivering his published paper before the national elite of the retina world.
The result, Jimmy was turning down Harvard and Johns Hopkins to attend America’s top retina residency program at UCLA.
The Odyssey wasn’t over yet though. Once at UCLA, the head of the program told him he thought letting Jimmy into the program was a mistake because the other students were from Ivy League medical schools and had finished at the top of their classes. Jimmy would never be able to compete.
Well, with incredible personal sacrifice, and the support of his wife Carol, a brilliant woman who used her Ph.D. in math to tutor students and supported a dynamic where she would see her husband for only a few minutes a day while he relentlessly worked and studied.
The result: Jimmy not only was the first person in the family to graduate from college, but he also graduated number 1 from America’s top retina residency program.
Dr. Bastek used his work ethic and commitment to Mastery to build an incredibly financially successful medical practice. Far more important to him, he was beloved by his patients, respected by the medical profession, and saved the vision of countless people.
Even more importantly, he was an incredibly devoted father to his two children, Scott and Jamie. They skied regularly in Windham, New York, as well as attending sporting events, and loving their ocean front shore home in what many know to be not only New Jersey’s but one of America’s best beaches, especially for families, Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
So, it was a Friday, and New Jersey kicks off its summer on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. In New Jersey, the summer is about family and going “down the shore.” Jimmy had been doing that since his Mom and Dad would somehow save enough to rent a tiny shore cottage blocks away from the beach.
Now, he was ocean front providing the American Dream for his family, but never forgetting his Jersey City roots and what it was like to have little more than family, love, and hope.
On Friday, May 22, 1998, as Dr. Bastek finished his awe and gratitude absorption of what his life of Mastery and blessings from God had provided, he headed off to his structurally reinforced suburban, which he had modified to protect his beloved family. It was time for a beautiful family weekend not only with his wife and children but also his parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. LBI was the whole family’s true home and gathering place now.
Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy was gone. The traffic had backed up on Route 17. He was in stopped traffic behind a tractor-trailer. A few seconds later, a fully loaded tractor trailer with a distracted driver, crushed the suburban into the tractor-trailer in front of it.
Jimmy’s Mastery of even his family’s safety, saved the life of his wife and children, but tragically not his mother-in-law’s life, or his own.
That day, I was a young lawyer and was playing basketball with friends when our friend Mike, now chief of police in Emerson, came by to say hello. He asked us if we had heard about the horrible accident on “17” right by the Garden State Plaza. Never one to like to dwell on tragic stories, I headed into my parents’ home to say hello to my little sister, Randi, who was still in high school.
A short time later, I returned to my house down the block to have dinner.
The phone rang. It was my mother. She was screaming, and I couldn’t understand her. I knew something unspeakable had happened, and I felt sick and panicked.
A short time later I was walking into the trauma unit of Hackensack hospital to see first my cousins, Scott, 11 at the time, and Jamie, 16, at the time. They were seriously injured from the accident. Their mom, Aunt Carol, was in a life and death struggle having broken her neck at the C-2 level, which typically results in death or paralysis.
My Godfather and Uncle Jimmy was gone.
Today, 20 years later, as I am excited to begin the summer of 2018, to enjoy LBI with my children, family, and friends, I, like every year, have tears rolling day my face thinking about Uncle Jimmy.
It isn’t just for missing his life lessons, family ski time at Windham, memories at the shore, and always wanting to impress him and have him be proud of me. I think of the impact his life as an example of possibility gave to me. He was the person who I knew that went after his dreams and made miracles a reality. And, it wasn’t because he was financially successful. That was simply a by-product of a life lived with definite purpose, relentless work ethic, love and a desire for fun and balance.
So, on this beautiful sunny day, like that day 20 years ago, I do my small part to keep Uncle Jimmy’s legacy of hope, belief, dreams, relentless work ethic, fun and love being remembered, shared and learned from.
To my family, I love all of you and will see you all soon. My heart is with all of you today.
To everyone else, I pray that it is and will continue to be a “Wonderful Life,” as one newspaper described the time on this earth for my Uncle Jimmy.
Let us all live in gratitude, living each day as if it were our last, while never forgetting what our lives stand for and where they are headed.
Thank you as well to our past and present armed forces on this Memorial Day weekend. May God protect you and keep you safe.
Thank you for providing us with the liberty and freedom to think Memorial Day is about family, fun, barbecues, and beaches and to be arguing political nonsense instead of living under tyranny and dictatorships like much of the world has and still does.
In your service,
Sean R. Callagy
