I am not afraid to die.
What a way to start a post. But it is totally true. I no longer fear death. I know that I will be fine. And knowing that means I have an unbelievable burden lifted off of me.
When I die, I know that I will see Nick. I know that Nick is in heaven and in death I will see him. I also know that I will see God. I believe I have lived a good life and I will go to heaven. I sure hope so at least.
I am a lucky guy. At least it seems so. But is it true. Or is it luck seems to follow those that work hard and actually care. How come those people that work the hardest and care the most seem to be so lucky. There must be a correlation.
When Nick was killed, our family was totally crushed, just like any family would be. We had a choice to make. We could crawl into a hole and let our grief paralyze us, or we could fight like hell to get through it. We did both. Some days we crawled into a hole and simply cried until there were no more tears left to cry. Other days we worked as hard as humanly possible and fell into bed exhausted but satisfied that we did all we could possibly do that day. Thankfully there have been more of those days than the prior.
So where are we at today and where do we go from here. We move forward. Each minute, each hour, each day. We get up, we fight, we strive to be the best we can be. Some days that is not very good. Some days life wins and beats us down. Most days we win. We do something good. We help somebody. We care. We always care.
These past two weeks were overall great weeks. Not perfect. Not without hardship. But overall great. Grant Murphy took over Nick’s Foundation. Maria Murphy helped save kids lives at PICU at OSF. Theresa Murphy raised money to help create better facilities to help more people at OSF and CHOI. Alec Murphy continues to excel in law school and life. Delaney Murphy continues to inspire me each day with the young woman she has become and her work ethic. And then there is Nick, who continues to inspire me each day to be the “Man in the Arena”, to do my best, to overcome failure and keep working hard every minute of every day.
I literally wake up every day and thank God. I thank God for giving me the blessings He has given me. I am proud of our success. Because of our success, we are able to help thousands of people. We will continue to help more. For that I am proud. But it is not “I” alone. We do it together, and most importantly we do it through God.
Many people will read this and wonder why I give thanks to God in today’s world. Am I scared I will lose clients, or friends, or concerned that family will think I am weird about God. Maybe I will. But that is a risk I am willing to take. Until you have walked in my shoes, and lost a child, you have no idea what it takes just to get out of bed, let alone accomplish what we have done the last 28 months. I could never have done it on my own. Many days God has carried me and many days in the future He will continue to carry me. I am proud to say I need that help. Something would be wrong with me if I didn’t need His help. It is no different than every client we have. They need our help and we are here. So is God for all of us if we just ask.
Thank you Theresa, Grant, Maria, Alec, Nick and Delaney, as well as all my extended family, friends, coworkers and colleagues. I am here today, doing what I do, because of you as well. And for that reason, it is a good day.
