Thank you Abby

Double duty tonight because I missed last night's entry. Tonight we watched "The Biggest Loser" from this week, and I'm grateful that we took the time. The beautiful thing about reality shows is that, sometimes, they let you experience reality through the life of another in a way that touches you deeply and helps you heal. Such was my experience tonight with Abby.

Two and a half years ago Abby lost what no person should have to lose. Her husband, 5 year old daughter, and infant son were all killed in a car accident 5 minutes after leaving their home. The person who hit them was driving his car over 100 mph, and he also died in the accident. There is no mistaking the tragedy of that event, and anyone with feelings will almost automatically put up a protective shield to keep the emotions of that experience out. So did I. But there were more tragedies that day, not the least of which was the loss of Abby. No, she didn't die, but she retreated from the world and cut herself off from life. Rather than live, she merely existed from day to day and tried to keep out of her heart anything that could hurt it again. After 2 1/2 years she was on "The Biggest Loser" and mercifully began to find herself there. With touching emotion we witnessed her transformation - her rebirth - and we watched with wonder as she sacrificed herself for the good of others and went home at elimination. But she was ready, and it shows. She has her life back, and in a wonderful way, her family and friends now have their Abby back too.

In the update on where she is today, they showed her making a speech to the students and teachers of a high school. One of the things she said struck me and brought me to immediate tears. She said (paraphrasing), "Life is hard and sometimes it hurts. But even in our darkest hour, there is still hope. And what I say to you, I would also say to the person who killed my family, had he lived: 'Today is your second chance. Choose now to live a different life.' I know you can, because as I stand here today, I am living proof of that reality."

I don't talk about it much in a public forum, but nearly 29 years ago we lost my little brother Paul to a severe liver disease called biliary atresia. I was only three, he was only one, but I remember to this day the moment when the morticians came and took my little brother away. I didn't understand then and I don't understand now why it was that he had to go. I miss my little brother. I love him and want to share my life with him - my wife and children, his wife and children, the joys and sorrows of life, and the brotherhood of two men who have shared their entire lives together. Instead, I have spent the last 29 years figuring out how to live beyond the loss.

Paul's death and everything that I thought it meant has come to define my life - and the lack thereof. The effects were manifest differently in me than in Abby. In her sense of grief, guilt and abandonment, she retreated from life and loved ones and put on a large amount of weight. In my sense of loss and abandonment, I gravitated toward loved ones but felt guilt because I couldn't make it all better for them. I also felt unworthy because, I reasoned, if I were a good enough brother, a good enough boy, Paul would not have left. So throughout my life, I have accepted and perpetuated these lies, that I'm not good enough and that I'm powerless. These brutal, persuasive lies have dictated a huge portion of my life and have left me with much in the way of regrets, under-achievements, depression, heartache, and missed opportunities. Why? Because I believed the lies, sought evidence to prove them valid, focused on these distortions, and punished myself through constant self-inflicted emotional onslaughts.

I have spent the last few years striving to understand these limiting and destructive beliefs, learn where they came from, and free myself from the shackles and chains that have weighed me down for so long. I feel like I've made measurable progress and that I'm seeing life through a healthier perspective than before. But every day is still a struggle between the lies of my past and the truth of my present, and I have felt the need for help. And then tonight there was Abby, whose losses are so different yet so similar to mine, telling me that starting today I have a second chance, an opportunity to live a different life than the one I knew before - the only life I can remember, really. The pain, the guilt, the remorse, and the sadness do not have the same powerful hold on me that they once had. I have come that far in the past few years, and tonight Abby gave me another level of permission to lay the past aside and embrace the life that is today - and live it with fullness. I believe Paul would want it that way - and I think he'd be pretty upset with me if I let his death be an excuse for living my life below my privileges. Instead, may his passing be my reason for living the life God intends for me. Thank you, Abby, for showing me proof that there is more to life than sorrow and that, while tragedy is the closing of one or more doors, it is also the opening of countless others. She can live the dream life - vita somnium - and so can I.