Sad But True

This part of my life is difficult to share, much less talk about. Yet, it is far too significant to omit. It is not my intention to be morbid or to depress the reader, but it is what it is and it needs to be said. Read on at your discretion.

My 30's were rather cluttered with funerals. It seems more family members and a friend or two passed away during this time than any other. It began tragically in 1992. My nephew, Brian, who was the only child of my brother Jeff, was pushed into oncoming traffic on a busy main street in Hayward, CA. Idiot ass, waste of life gang-banger pretending to be a real tough guy chooses the son of my deceased brother as a target and an entire branch of the family tree gets pruned.

Less than a year later, Dad dies after a long period of battling illnesses too numerous to count. Seems like life punched him in the gut so many times it was a wonder he could breathe. When he was laid off his job with General Cable that he held for over 25 years, he was no longer the bread-winner of the family. Mom took over this role with her post office career. Dad felt as though he was emasculated. It sent him spiraling into a deep depression and a feeling of worthlessness. He became paranoid and refused to leave the house. In his last decade, he suffered three nervous breakdowns and it was heartbreaking to visit him while he was hospitalized for this. Ultimately, he just wound up shutting down internally and that was that.

Late in 1997, Mom routinely comes home from work after her graveyard shift. She stops at Wendy's to enjoy a frosty as she likes to do occasionally. Then, for whatever reason, her heart simply stopped beating, her head slumped down, and it was over. She did have a pacemaker for some years, but she was a spry, active 73 year old woman who literally worked until the day she died. I'll admit my relationship with her wasn't the smoothest, but, conflicts or not, we were still mother and son.

If you still have your parents, do your best to enjoy each other. It is still a very odd, haunting feeling after 15 years to not have them around.

Another nephew and a sister died when I was in my 40's and I'll discuss that as that part of the timeline arrives. A close friend from my job at Varian stayed friends with me after I left in April 1997. I continued to visit him and his beautiful blond Brazilian wife and 2 daughters. After a while I noticed he started looking depressed. He was getting a gut on him and he seemed not to really care. I should have said something, I guess. Then some time passed, I became very busy, and I didn't visit for about a year. Finally, I dropped by one day only to have his wife tell me that he passed away. Shocking! My mind could not wrap itself around this revelation. He was one of a few people who told me I was their only friend. Well, now I had one less friend.

One thing that surfaced from all this was the fact that the only time our family really gathered together was at funerals. It further soured my opinion of the closeness (or rather, the lack of it) of the family to which I belonged. To this day I remain highly cynical of my relatives and family units in general. Does that make me a bad guy? Hope not...

Happiness is the Farmers' Market



Whole Foods for clean foods  

Now the push is on to reach the goal of breaking the 250 lb. weight mark. We train on the TRX (a fantastic device resembling a long adjustable strap with two handles on each end), we train on the assisted pull-up machine. Push-ups, inchworms, alligator walks, and an introduction to an object called a kettle bell. Continued water aerobics, spin classes, Stair Climber sessions, incline treadmill and elliptical machine at the corporate gym.

Then the day comes! I weigh in and the scale reads exactly 250 lbs.! RG and the other proprietors of FullForce are SO proud of me, but not as proud as I am of myself. Two and a half years and 282 lbs. of work, discipline and dedication have led to my rebirth as a fit, strong, new me!

With his usual class, RG treats me to a steak dinner with all the fixin's at Tahoe Joe's and we are joined by MS (one of the co-owners of FullForce) and significant others. One of the more memorable evenings of my lifetime, and the steak never tasted so good...

Next time, I hit rock bottom...in a good way!