The true meaning of courage often has little to do with acts of heroism (physical courage).

Occasionally I’m asked, “what makes firefighters take the risks that we do?”

Maybe it comes down to that old soldier’s adage; “Bravery is based on the firm belief that the bullet is always meant for someone else.” After all, that’s the way most of us live our entire lives.

In my limited experience, courage has nothing to do with the absence of fear and everything to do with facing fear and acting in spite of it.

That’s why I admire Tyrone Bolling.

When I got on the NYC Fire Department (FDNY) in 1986, I left my job as a Borough Coordinator at United Cerebral Palsy of NYS. After about eight years on that job, I was vested in their pension program and took that small amount of money and bought a Co-Op Apartment in the Inwood section of Manhattan, as much for the tax advantages as anything else.

As it turned out, Tyrone Bolling became my next door neighbor. Ty had a flamboyant, outgoing personality and was very active – we ran and played basketball together many times. The winters seemed shorter and the summers long, and all was right with the world.

It was during 1988 that Ty first fell without tripping and after that, he began losing his balance and falling often and for no reason at all. After visiting various doctors, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis or MS.

Ty went from walking with a cane, to being wheel-chair bound in short order.

Over the next dozen years, I’ve seen Ty’s disease progress to the point where he’s had a colostomy and been catheterized to remove his wastes. His hands shake involuntarily and his speech seems more labored, as his body denies him even the most basic freedoms and dignities that most of us happily take for granted.

Ty is living proof that life isn’t fair.

If it were, kind, caring and decent people like him, wouldn’t wither away at thirty years of age. It also puts the lie to the belief that so many of us hold that “we control our own fates.” We can work hard, live right and try our best to do no harm and still, we have no control over the big picture. We have no idea when, or if, cancer or a car wreck is going to strip us of all the things we’ve taken for granted, every gift we’ve accepted without gratitude. Life isn’t fair and we don’t control its parameters.

A person unaware of that is already dead.

Ty is alive because the one thing that hasn’t withered on him is his spirit. He’s still as open and outgoing, as bawdy and fun loving as he ever was. Nothing seems to get him down. That’s why it’s such an honor to know him.

Every time I think I’ve got things worth worrying about, his mere presence reminds me of how fortunate I am and how much worse things could be. Seeing Ty is a humbling experience – not merely because of his condition, but for the way he’s accepted it and for the way he’s maintained an optimistic faith and an abundant love for those around him, despite all that’s been taken from him.

In his presence, I often feel like a sniveling coward. A huge part of me recoils at the mere consideration of being so dependent on others. The inability to feed, cloth or even wash myself is more terrifying than any fire...a quick death seems so much more merciful than such a prospect. But that’s the whole point of it all – WE DO NOT GET TO CHOOSE OUR FATES.

Ty never chose this and we have no idea what lurks ahead for any of us.

It’s just that I feel lucky now, that this bullet wasn’t meant for me.

Being around Ty, I am ashamed of desiring such grand things without being profoundly thankful for the myriad gifts that we call “small things,” which merely make our lives more tolerable.

More than that, I am awed by the true power of fortitude, the attribute that allows for such hope in the midst of such of devastation. From Ty’s fortitude has sprung an incredible resilience that enables him to keep getting up each time MS knocks him down.

That is an unbelievably inspiring thing.

I’ve worked as a fireman in the South Bronx for fifteen years and I’ve been lost in fires, fearing my air would run out or that I’d make the wrong move, I’ve had an aerial ladder slide from the roof of a building as I neared its top, leaving me hanging onto the rungs as the ladder swayed wildly in the wind. I’ve witnessed many spectacular acts of bravery pulled off by ordinary men under extraordinary circumstances, but the man I admire most remains Tyrone Bolling.

He has not only accepted the risks inherent in this life, but he’s dealt with the most extreme consequences of those risks with dignity, poise and grace...plus a fortitude that deeply humbles me, a man who once considered himself resilient.