I am here to help. I do not know all of what that help is yet, but I know that I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to help.
I just woke up and the last thing I remember from my dream was my neighbors coming to the front door of my house. It was not my real house, but I knew I lived there. I was not home, but I was watching them from across the way walking to my door. There was a young husband and wife and two children. They are not real people I know, but in the dream I know that I know them from down the street, and I know that they know me and my family and know what we have been through with Nick.
They knock on the door and no one is home.
I am not there to help. I watch them leave and walk away back toward their own home. At that moment in the dream, I know I must act and go after them and I do. I run down the street and ask them what is up. The young father looks at me and calmly states that someone died on Friday. Two days ago. I look at them and it does not register. Who died? And then I realize that it is one of their sons.
I look at them and realize instantly that they came to me for help, for guidance, for some type of answer as to what to do or how to act or how to survive.
I know I am there to help. I immediately give the Dad the biggest and longest hug I can give and then I wake up.
It was so real and so intense I remember everything about that last five minutes of my dream. More importantly, I instantly recognized what it meant, at least to me. They were coming to me for help. They knew what I had been through. They needed help and I could give it and I did.
Who knows what dreams mean? Who knows what death means?
This weekend I just read a cool book called “Afterlife” that is being made into a movie by Ron Howard. It is a fictional book and will be a good movie. In that book, all of the people that died an abrupt death, not someone who lived a full life and died in old age, went to the next place they call an Echo. It is earth as we know it without any energy except the people living in it. It is an interesting read because it once again has Heaven or the afterlife all around us in a different dimension that is so close to our real earth, but not penetrable by either world. Similar to other books I have read that has the afterlife nearby. It also has all of us being just a form of energy, with that energy transferring from our body in this life to the next. I would assume that is what we call our soul. That all makes sense to me as being possible, if not probable.
What makes us alive seems like energy to me.
Anyway, the book was really good and the dream was very interesting. What I took away from it was very simple. I am here to help and I am going to do just that. I am one of the most fortunate people I know on earth and have been blessed with a great life with great people and much success. All of that has lead to me being in the position that I can make a huge difference, now and in the future. I have the ability to save peoples lives, literally. And by I, I don’t mean just me. I mean me and everyone around me in my life. All of my family and friends, my co-workers at Murphy & Dunn, all of the work we will be doing at the Nicholas J. Murphy Foundation and for veterans and active duty military through the Nicholas J. Murphy Foundation Pro Bono Clinic.
It is unbelievable to me how much we can do and how we are doing it.
We are going to exponentially expand what help we can give over the next year. Once we get everything worked out properly from a paperwork standpoint and from an ability to properly apply for grants, we will be hiring full time attorneys and staff for Nick’s Foundation and pro bono clinic and will be taking it statewide. No one else can offer free or reduced rate family law legal services to veterans and active duty military like we can. That is our future at the Foundation.
So when I say we can save lives, I mean it.
I have no doubt that we will save a veteran from harming himself in the future by taking care of them legally when they need help. That will be our calling. That will be one way we help.
It is exciting to be a part of this. I can feel myself getting stronger and stronger everyday, wanting to help and get myself back to being the best I can be. I can feel my mental health recovering. I can sense in every part of my being that God has guided me along this path for a reason. He has carried me when necessary, and now He has put me back healthy to take all of this to the next level. I tell everyone I work with and all of my family that “The sky is the limit”. It truly is. We dream big and this is just the start. Join us if you can. Read our story and see what you can do, to help us or to help others. As Nick tried to be, be “The Man in the Arena” and get off the sidelines. No one does anything great by sitting back and waiting. Do whatever you are going to do starting today.
For those of you that don't know Nick's story and the beginning of his Foundation, watch this video. It means a lot.