MARK KUNERTH

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For twenty-five years, I made my living making people laugh — as a writer on Friends, About A Boy, Speechless and Showtime’s The Big C.

For sixteen of those years, I was also something the resumé doesn’t show: the husband and caregiver of my wife, Sky, through her diagnosis with glioblastoma, a brain cancer with a typical survival window of twelve to eighteen months.

She lived a miraculous sixteen years. Three brain surgeries. Hundreds of rounds of chemo. A personal blessing from Pope Francis. More laughter than I can count.

I wrote about it in my soon-to-be-published memoir, “One More Lap: A Story of Love, Impossible Odds, Bad Jokes and Showing Up” — not because I figured anything out, but because I learned something I wish I’d known on day one: my job was never to fix things. It was simply to stay.

I’m now bringing that story to rooms — caregiver conferences, hospice and healthcare organizations, corporate wellness programs and anyone trying to understand what it actually looks like to show up for someone, day after day, for longer than anyone expects.

If that’s a conversation your organization needs, I’d love to talk.