Taking a Step Back

(hint:  if you don’t read this post to the end, you’ll be disappointed, and you won’t even know why.)

I think it’s time I take a step back and review my original intent for creating this blog.  I know it’s football season and people want to talk and read about football, especially Clemson football (at least most who read this blog), but talking football is not the intent of the blog.  If you read my front page, I stated that my purpose was two-fold: 1) to keep Leigh’s legacy alive and 2) to help me find or regain my “strong.”

Most of my latest posts, to include posts about Clemson football, have fallen into the second intent category.  Going to Clemson sporting events and writing about them, and enjoying friendships,  is definitely helping me to deal with life after Leigh and to cope with grief.  Am I through grieving?  Absolutely not.  Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Leigh.  Every time I see a young girl or woman running, I see Leigh.  When I see the personal trainers at the Rec Center, I see Leigh.    Every sad song I hear is in some way about Leigh.  But all the activities that Louise and I are involved in here and all the friends that we see on a regular basis convince me that we made the right decision to come to Clemson.

Last week, when Louise and I were in Boone, Leigh’s in-laws gave us a box of old tapes that had been left at her house.   So for the past three days, I have been reviewing those tapes to see which are worth keeping.   The tapes are bringing back fond memories, not only of Leigh, but of the entire family, reminding me that I am still blessed to have the family I have.  We’ve had a lot of laughs and great times, and we’ll have many more.

I don’t think I’ve been doing a very good job with intent #1, that of keeping Leigh’s legacy alive.  I’m often asked how book sales are going.  I don’t really know how to answer that, because I don’t know how they should be going.   There’s no indication that it’s going to become a best seller in the near future, but people are buying it.  The sales have been going in spurts, usually consistent with my appearances at events such as book signings or speeches.  I greatly appreciate the friends and acquaintances who have facilitated the setup of this engagements.  Jim Sutherland hosted a talk and book signing at his Atlanta book club which was very successful.  Frank and Crossie Cox sponsored a talk about the book at the local Optimist Club.  I did a presentation (on a different subject, but effective and appreciated no less) at the local Sertoma Club thanks to Jim Palmer.  And for the past two years, I have spoken at Appalachian State University’s Annual Walk for Awareness.  Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the “Walk,” and ASU is planning a big (perhaps week-long) event which will include me in some capacity.  And later this month, I’ll be going up to Boone to speak and sign books at a local runners’ club.  I have a really big event planned in April.  My dear friend, Bill Duffy, who is now President at Upper Iowa University, has invited me and Louise to come up and do a presentation and book signing to his student body and to the community of Fayette in conjunction with their Project Stand Up, a program to confront sexual assault.    All these events are great and very much appreciated, but I’d like to do more.

As of today, there are 56 subscribers to this blog.  I appreciate you all.   And you can help.  If you enjoy reading these posts, or at least some of them; if you’re a fan of Leigh; and/or if you would like to help keep Leigh’s legacy alive and spread her story; I would hope that you would recruit someone to subscribe to this blog.  That will at least make them aware that such a story exists.  And while you’re doing that, you might suggest that they go to amazon.com and purchase a copy of the book, either the print version or kindle.  Another thing you might do is take a look at your Christmas gift list (it’s not too soon), and see if there is someone on that list who might like a gift of “Finding Strong.”  Of course, when we get up to 112 subscribers, I’ll repeat this appeal.

I’m going to throw in one more topic with this post, as I like to include something we can laugh about.  I’ve talked about some weird dreams I have had lately in previous posts.  I had another one last night:  not fighting Mexicans this time; in fact, just the opposite – doing nothing.  Actually, I was standing in line.  I hate standing in line.  I don’t have the patience to just stand in line waiting to do something; and besides, I always pick  the wrong line.  If there are three lines, I will survey them before committing to one, but whatever line I pick is sure to become the slowest.  I’m the same way in a traffic jam on the interstate.  My lane is always the slowest.  Then when I realize the other lanes are moving faster than mine, I aggressively switch lanes, and of course, that lane then becomes the slowest.  But in my dream last night, I found myself standing in a line.  It was in a building, and there were three lines.  I chose line # 3, because it appeared to be the shortest line.  I stood in that line for two hours, real time.  I know that because I woke up at 3 AM to go to the bathroom.  I had no trouble going back to sleep, started this dream, and didn’t wake up again until 5 AM.  Several times I debated whether I should move over to line #1, which was obviously moving faster than #3, but knowing my history, I knew that line would come to a screeching halt if I joined it.   Now the interesting thing about this dream is that the thing that woke me up was the fact that when I finally got up to the point where there was only one person in front of me in my line, I realized that I had no idea what I was standing in line for.    I didn’t need to renew my driver’s license, I wasn’t in a grocery store, I wasn’t waiting to see a doctor.  I had absolutely no reason to be standing in line and I had just wasted two hours doing nothing.  I thought about asking the guy behind me what he was there for, but I was afraid that might make me look like a fool.  So I woke up in frustration.

Thank you all.  And Beat Wake!!