Horizons

Me and my son. Two dudes and a truck. On the Healing Road... 

When I look back at the decisions I’ve made, my truth is that my compass was always pointed in the right direction. But maybe I didn’t always know where I was going? I do know what I want for my son… In fact, all I want is for him to be a good man. That’s all.  And that only begins with the example I set.

On April 9th, 2022, I lost my wife of nearly twenty years to cancer. My ten-year-old son, Conor, lost his mother. Sara fought a bare-knuckle bout with a rare type of Ovarian Cancer. Her fight took four years to the day and her strength and constitution is legendary. Conor bore witness to it all. In fact, nearly half his life has been spent tethered to a Cancer diagnosis. And in Sara's final moments, Conor stood alongside me and our family friend, Jennifer, and watched as his beloved mother moved on from this plane while he held her hand.  

While Sara was in her fight, and while I was in Sara's corner, a young boy whose whole world was these two people was being managed between chemotherapy sessions, recovery, hospital visits, and the malaise of the fight. It was just his experience... We couldn't make plans. We couldn't take a long vacation. We couldn't get to Disney or to Yellowstone or to the black-waters of southern Louisiana - all places Conor's always wanted to go. All places we all talked about going to together. 

Of necessity, the last four years have been about Sara. And now Conor and I have to build a new life together. Certainly that will take time... It'll take time and patience and care and attention. It will require grace and forgiveness. It'll be thousands of uncommon and common experiences alike. What it won't be is easy. And so I thought, "What's the best way to facilitate these beginnings?" How do I, a 49 year old widowed father, find a relatable starting point to guide my 10 year old son to a life without his mother? And that's when it occurred to me. All the things Conor has always wanted to do, the places he's wanted to see and experiences he wanted to share as a family; that's where we start. Down a Healing Road.

We need this time to heal. We need this time to learn how to be a family without Sara. We need to mark this moment in our lives… Before Cancer. After Cancer. I think I can see where I’m going, now. I have an idea of what I want our life together to look like, and it starts with doing the things I’ve promised my son we would do. It starts with me showing him how important he is to me. 

So we’re taking this trip. We’re going to see it all! We’re eating what America is cooking.  We’re going to drive from town to town, and from state to state. We're going to talk, to experience, to feel, to taste. I see it as a building block - the cornerstone to a great and incredible structure. We're all a product of our experiences, right? To move forward we have to GO forward. So I'm going to take a little time from my work, we're going to hop in our Chevy truck, and we're gonna start driving... For me, it's about perspective. This moment requires us to expand our horizons. This moment requires us to be men of the world! And along the way, through new and unique places, amazing adventures, different sights and sounds, we just may heal...

Here's to the healing road and to finding our way home again.