December 22
Yesterday came by and went much like it has for the previous 17 years at this time it was different. I am now a father as well as being a husband. A lot has changed.
December 22 is not just a date for me.
It’s a marker in time — a dividing line between who I was and who I became.
On December 22, 2008, at 7:28 a.m., I was hit by a car while crossing the street. Thirty miles an hour. It happened in an instant. I didn’t see it coming until the final nanosecond — when something people talk about actually happened. Life flashed before my eyes. Not as a movie, but as fragments. Faces. Moments. Love. A series of mental Polaroids that somehow all fit into a heartbeat.
And then I was gone.
But I woke up.
That day didn’t just spare my life. It returned it to me, unfinished.
From that moment on, December 22 stopped being a memory and became a responsibility. A yearly reminder that I had been given a second chance — not just to exist, but to live intentionally. To pay attention. To slow down. To tell the people I love that I love them, and why.
I decided to Live my life with purpose and always in adventure. However, the years that followed weren’t gentle. Crutches. Sprains. Broken bones. Pinched nerve. Falls. A mugging. ER visits. Cervical issues. Spinal column issues. Hip flexors. Pain that lingered longer than it should have. Pain was not my friend but it was certainly a passenger in my life. However, none of those moments became reasons to harden my heart. They became invitations — to get back up, to choose perspective, to decide who I would be because of what I’d survived.
Adversity reveals character. Period.
I learned early on that I don’t control what happens to me —
but I absolutely control how I respond.
And that response has shaped everything.
December 22, Revisited
Three years later — December 22, 2011 — the date changed again.
On the exact same day that once marked my brush with death, my niece Beatrix was born… the very first baby amongst my siblings and me.
New life. Same date.
That wasn’t a coincidence to me. It felt like continuation.
My survival wasn’t the story — it was the prelude.
December 22 no longer stood only for a second chance at life; it now stood for new life itself.
Beatrix’s birth reframed the day entirely. Where there had once been fragility, there was now creation. Where there had been fear, there was promise. Life answering death with life — decisively, beautifully.
That pattern has repeated itself more than once since.
Faith, Family, Friends
If I’m honest, none of this has ever been a solo journey.
Faith has been the constant — not faith as certainty, but faith as trust when clarity is missing. I have recognised over the years that God is present in all things. And His plan is moving even when we do not realise it.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5–6
Family has been the anchor — steady, grounding, unwavering.
Friends have been living proof that God shows up through people. Through presence. Through late-night texts, prayers, meals, rides, laughter, and silence when words aren’t necessary.
Faith. Family. Friends.
The three Fs have carried me — every single time. And Fun. Okay that is four Fs… I love to have fun!
Grace
December 22 didn’t just give me perspective — it taught me how to live.
Learning how fragile life is forced me to slow down. To be present. To appreciate moments instead of rushing past them. To say the things that matter out loud. To tell people I love them — and why — while I still could.
That way of living shaped me. It softened me without weakening me. It made me more attentive, more intentional, more awake. It made me stronger. It made me… me.
And it led me to Grace.
When I met her, I recognized it instantly — not intellectually, not dramatically, but deeply. She was the person I was meant to spend my life with.
From her perspective, she didn’t just step into my world — she honored it. She understood what December 22 meant to me. She didn’t minimize it or move past it. She celebrated it with me. She respected the weight of that day and the man it helped form.
Grace didn’t change my life by fixing it.
She changed it by sharing it.
Surrender Changed Everything
At the beginning of this year, my word was surrender.
Grace and I had been trying to have a baby for years. And if I’m being honest, I think I was gripping the outcome too tightly — pushing for a timeline, trying to drive a result, confusing effort with control.
So I let go.
I surrendered my plan and trusted in God’s plan.
And within two months, Grace told me she was pregnant. After years of trying, it was truly a miracle!
Not even three weeks later, my body started telling me something wasn’t right. Weakness. Tremors. Changes I couldn’t explain. Months of tests followed. And eventually, a diagnosis: ALS.
I won’t pretend this is easy.
Things are hard. Some days are brutally hard.
But this much remains true:
I don’t get to choose the diagnosis.
I do get to choose my posture.
And that choice still belongs to me.
Lizzy
On November 10, 2025, Elizabeth Maria entered the world.
Lizzy.
Her name means God’s promise. And that’s exactly what she is.
Every time I look at her, I hear Stevie Wonder in my head:
“Isn’t she lovely?
Isn’t she wonderful?
Isn’t she precious…”
She is not just our daughter.
She is confirmation.
Confirmation that surrender is not weakness.
That joy and hardship can coexist.
That hope is not abstract — it is real, breathing, and sleeping in our arms.
Maybe all of this — December 22, survival, Grace, ALS — is part of Lizzy’s origin story. A story that begins not with fear, but with love that refuses to shrink.
Hope, the Hard Way
Hope isn’t naive.
Hope is chosen.
That’s the kind of hope I believe in.
Not the kind that ignores reality —
but the kind that stands inside it and decides to keep going anyway.
Seventeen years after December 22, I’m still here.
Still loving.
Still believing.
Still surrounded by an extraordinary community.
Still choosing what is good, even when things are hard.
I don’t know how every chapter ends.
But I know how I will show up in each one.
With faith.
With family.
With friends.
With love.
And a whole lot of fun.
December 22 will always remind me how quickly life can change.
This year has reminded me that meaning is built by response, not circumstance.
Swept outAnd I still believe — deeply — that there is a pot of gold at the end of this story and that this road Will lead to something glorious…
Not because the road is easy.
But because love has never stopped meeting me along the way.
Secret of My SucCecil 