A few months after Tyler passed away I met a friend for lunch. As I was parking I noticed a father pushing his son in a wheelchair. As I got closer I watched him pick up his boy and place him in the back seat of his car. I guessed the father was in his late 40s or early 50s and the son in his 20s. This was a grown man picking up a grown man with care and love.
I got out of the car and approached the father. I quietly said, “Excuse me.”
He turned and looked at me quizzically.
I said, “I am sorry to bother you, is he your son?”
He said he was.
I told him I used to carry my son the same way - I would scoop him up out of his chair and gently place him in the car. I also told him how much I missed carrying Tyler.
He said, “I have been doing this for his entire life and I will do it for the rest of mine.”
I told him he was a good father. He smiled. I said goodbye and walked away.
I don’t know why I share this other to say that I think that is what life is all about – lifting each other. I lifted Tyler physically, but he lifted me emotionally and spiritually. There is not one person alive that is not capable of lifting another and there is not a person alive that doesn’t need to be lifted on occasion. That is why we are here – to lift. To lift physically, to lift emotionally, and to lift spiritually. There is too much tearing down in our country.
So…lift!
Cherish every moment.
Tyler's Dad
Whatever It Takes