It’s Whether You Get Up II
This is my friend Lee. In March of 2022, he and his wife were run over and dragged 200 feet under a ‘97 Dodge Ram pickup while biking trails in Tucson, AZ.
He lost his beautiful wife as a result of that accident. She was my friend and I miss her every day. I’m crying on a plane as I write this, because she was a mentor who inspired me to live and love my life, fully, and here I am, off on a grand adventure!
Lee was expected to lose his life too, but he didn’t. He fought his ass off to survive what must have felt like the force of a thousand suns torching his entire existence. I’m grateful he is still here. Every day.
Somehow, he managed to get back up. For that he is, and always will be my hero.
My hero Lee, you are my hero.
Because getting up, knowing that you will do it alone, without the person you’ve done everything, all over the world with, for all the best years of your life, must be excruciating. I know it has been for him.
Lee suffered 11? broken ribs, 2 broken vertebrae and degloving of his left arm. (Yeah, zoom in on that arm. It’s a medical miracle.) If you don't know what "degloving" is, it's pretty much exactly as it sounds. Maybe don't "Google" it. It's not for the faint of heart.
Those are just the highlights. There were a multitude of gruesome injuries and subsequent surgeries. So many surgeries, carefully (and sometimes not so carefully) picking debris out of his skin. So much suffering on so many levels.
Eight weeks in, I watched him weep as he said goodbye to his best friend and lover. The woman he co-parented with. The woman he became a grand-parent with. The woman he built his life with.
Despite it all, he got up and kept going.
Now I could tell you what sets this man apart is that he survived and has gone on to ride a bike again, across the entire state of Iowa, in honor of his late wife, or that this Maestro has started playing his cello again, something we all doubted would be possible, or I could tell you it’s because despite losing the literal loves of his life he pushed forward.
But that’s not entirely it.
What sets this man apart is his humility. His gratitude. His forgiving nature. His ability to live in his moment, even his moments of anguish. His ability to find acceptance in even the most gut-wrenching scenarios.
His Zen. It's his ability to find pleasure, laugh, challenge himself and seek contentment in spite of a horrible, irrevocable situation that he never saw coming.
Just like my dad.
But the best thing I get to say about Lee, is that he lets me be part of his extraordinary life. Where I get to admire him, learn from him, and love him with all my heart.
I pray for his restoration and every happiness, daily. I'm so lucky, so lucky, for the examples I've had in my life. It’s not whether you get knocked down.
It only matters that you get up.
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