Health Council of South Florida

Peter Adzima: Short Bio Peter Adzima grew up on a small farm in Western Massachusetts. Along with his brothers and sisters, a great deal of his youth was spent baling hay, running fence line and cutting cordwood. He attributes much of his strong character to a farmer’s lifestyle. “When you work on a farm, you can’t cheat, you can’t lie, you can’t steal. You can only deal with what Mother Nature hands to you.” Always the late bloomer, he didn’t start playing guitar until he was 18 and he didn’t start writing songs until he was 23. But music blossomed to become part of his life. He often calls himself a “living room songwriter”, as he wrote songs for nearly twenty years and just kept them to himself. He worked a number of different jobs on his journey to get where he is today, recording his first CD, “Reap the Flowers”, when he was in his early forties. The inspiration for making that first recording came shortly after he was diagnosed with having the Hepatitis C virus. While undergoing a form of chemotherapy to eradicate the virus from his body, he recorded all the songs on the CD, then, he went home to the farm to finish the treatments and replenish his body. While he was in the last stages of the drug treatment, he began writing a song called “Forgive Her”. When asked what the primary message of the song was he replied, “It started off as a song that said “it hurts.” Then it evolved further into portraying the irony of forcing yourself to take drugs that make you sick with the intent of making you well.” (You can see the “Forgive Her” video on Youtube. Just search Peter’s name.) Peter’s journey led him to write an inspirational “speech with songs” that is titled “Living Beyond Your Afflictions.” It is a story of hope, courage and the search for spirituality, inspiring the individual to be all you can be in a time when the world seems quite unforgiving. The story is sprinkled with songs that directly relate to the subject matter, allowing the listener to relate their life experience to his words and songs of encouragement.