Wanted to share my personal story
Three years ago, my life started falling apart. Last Wednesday, I did something almost nobody knew I'd been working toward for nearly a year, but to understand why, you have to understand how I got there. A few years ago, I had a family, a job, and a plan. Then my truck was destroyed. My son went from calling it "Dada's old truck" to "Dada's ouchy truck" and I had no idea that was only the beginning. Not long after, we found out my wife was pregnant with twins. Then I lost my job. Suddenly, high-risk pregnancy, no job, everything stacking up. Then the twins came early. Instead of bringing our babies home, the NICU became our normal. Wires, monitors, machines. One stayed there for forty-three days, the other for forty-eight, and through all of it, their older brother couldn't even go inside to meet his new brother and sister. When we finally brought them home, we were under threat of foreclosure. Then my father-in-law, one of the few steady male influences in my life, was diagnosed with cancer. We lost him, and after that, I took on helping care for my mother-in-law too. Somewhere in all that, I had to ask myself what I was going to do with everything that had happened. I couldn't control all that, but I could control what I did next. In October of '25, I weighed about 285 pounds. I wasn't ready, so I started working, losing weight, pushing harder, month after month. Today, I'm about 215. Seventy pounds down and still going. I'm thirty-five. I'm a husband, a father with more responsibility than ever, and the question became, what example do I want my kids to watch? I couldn't change what had happened, but I could decide what came next. For almost a year, I'd been working toward something I hadn't told most people about, and last Wednesday, that work led here. I raised my right hand and swore into the United States Army Reserve. I don't have it all figured out. I'm still working, still changing, but after everything that brought me here, I'm ready for the next chapter.