A Fresh Start

2020 threw everything that it had at me. I lost my grandfather, not blood but I've known him my whole life, July 9th and I lost my father August 6th. My dad was a New York Firefighter/paramedic for the town of Newburgh, an hour east of Manhattan, for 20 years. He retired in the early nineties, but still lost friends in the towers on 9/11. My granddad served in Vietnam and took part in the nuclear tests. It ended up changing his blood type, I assume from radiation poisoning. He was a fantastic story teller and one of the greatest men that I’ve ever had the honor of meeting. Losing those two men really threw a wrench in my life and without question knocked me down to my knees. I went into a deep dark depression and it's taken six months for me to finally feel relatively good again. I've lost a hundred pounds going from 365 to 265, since July of last year. Although most was a healthy loss, at first it was because I struggled to eat after my dad passed away. He was easily my best friend and confidant so the loss was extremely hard on me.

Six months down the road however, I’m quickly improving and getting significantly stronger by the day. My entire new years resolution revolves around honoring the last two things that I ever promised my father; to get into good physical shape again and to become successful in this life.I want the next time I see him to go the same way it did when I made All Stars for northern Nevada in High school. “That’s my boy!”

Losing weight has been fairly easy for me this time around. As previously mentioned, I was an all star football player in high school, I also lettered in baseball and basketball, and always knew how to get into shape, but because I suffered from post concussion syndrome I had little to no motivation to even attempt a run at getting back into shape again. This time around though I have no choice, My dad would always say,”A man is guaranteed one thing in this life and that’s his word.” That’s always resonated with me and is an integral part of how I carry myself. My dad raised me to be the kind of man happy to give my last dollar to somebody in need. He was an incredible man and I feel so thankful that I had him as my father. Getting back into a healthy physical shape was important for him because he knew how much better my quality of life would get.

What does success mean to me? Success in my eyes these days is paving a way to ensure more post concussion sufferers don’t have to deal with this injury the way I had to the last six years. I’m a member of “The Concussion Community” on Facebook and use my first hand knowledge to help individuals that are struggling. It means a great deal to me that people who suffer from depression and anxiety know that they’re not alone in their battle. Things can get very dark at times and I already know what it feels like to lose a good friend to depression. It’s absolutely heart shattering and wakes you up the hard way. Having to talk about these issues myself now has made an incredible impact on my life and made dealing with it significantly easier. Success is also finding a solid career path and starting to save for my future. I’m twenty-six now and realize the more money I’ve saved the better I’ll be able to provide for a family, when I eventually have one.

In summary, I’m more driven and hungry today to find success in this life than I’ve ever been. What that completely means as I sit here today, I have no clue yet! All i know for sure is that when i stand before my father and grandfather for the first time on the other side of life I want them both to be proud of the man they helped to raise!