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This journal entry was a difficult one to write:

July 2, 2007

My Inspiration

This past November, I had a moment that I knew was important… you know how you have those moments sometimes. I was in Santa Fe, NM, hauling firewood in preparation for winter (yes, Santa Fe does have winter everyone, we’re not Phoenix… at one point this past winter I had 3-4 ft. of snow in my driveway and was snowshoeing to work and back for two weeks). When I picked up an especially large basket of wood to carry inside, I found that I couldn’t make it without stopping a few times to rest and remove some of the logs.

Now, like I said, it was a large basket of wood, and many people would not have been able to even pick it up, but I had not thought that I would have much trouble picking it up and carrying it inside, and here I was, huffing and puffing, and failing. After I got it inside, I was standing there with my hands on my knees thinking about how I wouldn’t have had much trouble moving that basket nine years ago, when I started getting angry. Now, it’s not like I made a resolution that day or anything, but… I just knew that a desire had been born in me that day… a seed had been planted, if you will.

A few months later, Febuary 4^th, 2007, was a day that I will remember forever. I got an unusually early morning call from my mother. It was immediately evident that something was very, very wrong.

With much difficulty, my mother informed me that my father had died of a heart attack. My father was 55 years old, and, although he was by no means the healthiest man on the planet, no one had expected that something like this would happen so soon. 65… maybe. 55… no.

My mother, sister, and I, as well as our friends and family, take some comfort in knowing that my father had a great last night. He and my mother had hosted a party the night before at which most of the guests were friends my parents had known since they were teenagers. His last words were to my mother, “I love you, dear.”

To put it mildly, this was hard to take… still is… I’m crying as I am writing this.

Like no other time in my life, the importance of physical health was thrust before my eyes.

I LOVE YOU, DAD!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under P90X, Ripped. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.