The lesson I learned caring for a sick wife ...

9 days ago, my wife unexpectedly passed away. You can read the LinkedIn article about the events that led to her hospitalization here ... I'll go more in depth about what happened at the end and the future legislative fight to ensure loved ones are NEVER frozen out of being there, no matter the extent of the 'pandemic' in a future article/post.

But I wanted to bear my soul today.

I shared the below post on Facebook, 2 days after my wife passed. I tweaked it a bit for LinkedIn. I hope this encourages you whatever you're going thru ....

For years, I’ve had friends say something to the effect of, “I don’t know how you do it” (re: Elizabeth’s health journey). Honestly, as tough as this journey is & was … I count myself fortunate. Stay with me on that thought.

In November 2014, when E went into the hospital with an enlarged heart, congestive heart failure and was ultimately diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, the head of pulmonary (a world renowned expert) pulled me aside and told me, “Steve, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s a very real possibility your wife won’t be around to see your youngest graduate high school.” He went on to explain that it could come from two ways: 1-Infection (like what set these dominoes in motion) 2-The PH meds eventually stop working (which we’ve seen a bit of the last couple years). To say it hit me like a ton of bricks would be an understatement, but I knew too well life’s brevity from our earlier experiences with her health. E nearly died during an emergency c-section with Matthew, she was in the hospital a few times with big lupus flareups, once with pneumonia while on vacation in Pagosa Springs, there’s been more ER visits/hospital stays than I can remember, and finally this.

When I recovered from the shock of Dr. Badesch’s statement, I made the determination that I would love my wife to the best of my ability ... every single day, so that if something happened and she was gone … I’d have no regrets.

Too often we are stuck in the ruts of life and just let it carry us along, and one day WHAM, you get blindsided by a fatal accident, heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, etc. So many of those people that I’ve talked wished they could’ve done at least one thing differently. I decided for myself … that wasn’t going to be me. Each day, I’d do what I could to love my bride more effectively, deepen our relationship, try to meet my boys in ways they’d best receive that love and attention, have more real and honest conversations with my closest friends, and just do what I could to improve myself (release the garbage and be a better human).

This is why I decided to not become an employee again, but go all-in on building my business (home with my family more and flexibility). This is why I started hiking more, started tackling 14ers, and why I got a membership to our rock climbing gym (I saw the way Caleb came alive when he’d climb and talk about climbing). This is why despite the absolutely crushing pain I feel today, I’m still able to look each of you in the eye and say, “Despite it all, I count myself fortunate.”

If there’s a lesson for you all: Don’t let life push you along. Find your path. Love your family & friends to the best of your ability. Like Brendon Burchard says ... Live. Love. Matter. And do it with everything you got ... each and every single day.