The phone rings. My mother-in-law answers. “Oh no! I am SO sorry …” You can only hear one side of the conversation, but you immediately knew that something terrible happened. After a few minutes, she hung up the phone and from the living room, I heard Jamie and her mother praying in the kitchen for their friend. When they finished, I found out that the brother of my mother-in-law’s friend had just had a big heart attack and was going in for open-heart surgery. I don’t know about you, but it’s moments like these where my health and fitness become very serious. There is debate over who exactly the following quote came from, but it is said that “you never appreciate your health until the day that you lose it.”
Memories came flooding back regarding one of my best friend’s from high school. He lost his dad at the age of 56. His mom will tell you that 10 minutes before he dropped dead of a heart attack, he was telling his wife how excited he was to enter the next phase of their life together. The last of their kids had recently achieved his independence, and they were getting to have fun together, much like when they first started dating … only better … because now they had grandkids! A moment later she would be calling 911 as he lay motionless on the floor. For him, there was no open-heart surgery. There was no tomorrow. The result was apparent, and he wasn’t coming back. A wife would lose her husband, 2 sons would lose their father, a daughter would lose her daddy, and grandkids would never again crawl up on grandpa’s lap. Back to the brother of my mother-in-law’s friend. They found complete blockage of his right coronary artery. Now that’s a lot of heavy-hearted material for an email from me. I realize that. We need to face the brutal facts of reality though. (Indeed, things would get worse for my mother-in-law as her son would die from a heart attack too, shortly after I originally wrote this article.) But here’s the good news:
This stuff doesn’t have to happen! Stories like this seemed to flow through the church where I grew up, almost every other week. It’s one of the big reasons that drove me into preventive health and fitness. Don’t become another tragic story. Don’t let your loved ones become another tragic story. Make your health a priority. Make fitness part of your everyday routine.
We all think that we can save ourselves tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Life is precious, and your quality of life is precious … and not just to you, but to your loved ones as well. I’ll leave you with one more powerful quote, and hopefully it will motivate you to take action and start taking care of yourself. If you need help, we are here for you. All you have to do is reach out and ask!
Here’s that quote I mentioned. Take it to heart. (and take care of yours) “The trouble is … we think we have time.”
