To See the Capsize and Go Forward Anyway

There is not one ounce of quit in me.?

I attribute this to my dad. We lost him last year to Lewy Body and I have never talked about it publicly.?I just don’t do that.?My dad didn’t talk about his feelings either.?Instead, he showed us. It took me a while to see that he showed me how to live.

A West Virginia native living rural and very poor from a large coal-mining family, his chosen way out at 18 was military. Proving that if you want something different, you have to take action, change and adapt.?He was an Airforce Vietnam Veteran. He met my mom and left the military to settle down.?Dedicated.?He loved her and us kids, too.?We had what we needed growing up, plus a few extras.?Dad went to work every day for the same company for nearly fifty years – rarely missing any days.?Losing him last year was devastating but knowing his impact on me is reassuring.?He’s still with me in spirt and bearing.

Stay with me, this is a bit of a journey.

About two weeks ago on a drive back from a gener8tor event in Peoria, I recounted a story about a fun whitewater rafting trip I had taken a decade ago to my teammate Abbey Titzer .?What resulted was a plan to go back to the same place and do the trip again.?We booked with New & Gauley River Adventures in West Virginia for a Gauley River whitewater rafting trip on October 2nd.? They are amazing and their guides are so experienced and knowledgeable!

Enter Hurricane Ian dumping a lot of unexpected rain in West Virginia which raised the river many feet above normal rafting levels.?We didn’t know if they’d let us go out on the river, but we showed up and they did.*?Any sane person would think that maybe it isn’t necessarily smart to go rafting during a hurricane.?For true whitewater rafter and kayaker aficionados, this kind of water is heaven and provides some extreme adventure not usually available-- I'm not one of those people. At any rate, this river has some of the toughest runnable whitewater on the planet and boasts some of the most formidable commercially run rapids in the whitewater industry.

Not going never crossed my mind.?I was committed unless the company cancelled on me.

Ten years ago, my trip had been exhilarating and adventurous, sunny and filled with laughter and chatter. Once on the water, this one felt ominous with a quiet Power of Nature type of beauty all around us. ?It was raining, 45 degrees with unusually cold river water. I was in a raft with nine other people plus our guide in a churning brown river way above normal levels and rising.?There was no excited chatter, rather I felt we were all a bit nervous.

Our group of four did not know the other group with whom we shared the raft.?We were from all different parts of the country, different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and industries.?Our guide was 22 years old, same age as my son!?We had to quickly learn to listen, take direction, pay attention, act immediately and work as a team.?We made mistakes. We paddled out of sync. We got stuck in an eddy behind a boulder, paddled out of the suck of several large waves and did our best to avoid whirlpools. We didn’t quit.

We had just been through a run of whitewater rapids with difficult technical moves, drops, huge waves, rocks and hazards.?We were getting tired.?A trip that normally took four-six hours we had run in one hour and forty-five minutes.?It was a fast-moving river.?We had one last large Class V rapid, and we would be at the takeout.??

We watched the raft ahead of us, led by an experienced 25-year veteran guide enter into a massive rapid with deep holes and 7-10 feet waves breaking over.?Through no fault of his, we watched it capsize in seemingly slow motion.?People catapulted out of the raft and into that roiling water.**?Our energy became fearful for the people in the water and for us.?We broke as a unit with confusion as to next steps.?

“MY BOAT!” said our guide firmly, “FOCUS!?Paddle forward!”?

Surprisingly, we snapped to attention and did so without delay.? He lined us up with what he thought to be the correct line into the rapid and in we went.?It was tough and scary and yet, we did it.?When we made it through, I was shaking with emotion and adrenaline from the challenge.?We had done it together.

Chances are that we’ll never see most of our raft buddies again.?I shared with them one of the scariest and defining moments of my life.?To see the capsize and go forward anyway.

Dad did that with his Lewy body diagnosis. ?He didn’t talk about it.?I know he was afraid, but he never quit.?He never gave up.?He fought. He always showed up and he worked hard.?This was how he lived his life, and I am glad to be like him.?Love you, Dad.?

• *Note 1: Everyone signed waivers before venturing out on the water, so we all knew what we were getting into -- and we knew that the rafting company would never compromise our safety and provided us with some amazing performance rafting equipment.
• **Note 2: Everyone tossed out of the boat made it back to the boat unharmed but drenched and somewhat shaken.

#neverquit #teamwork #lewybody #journey #knowthyself #westvirginia #whitewater