As my human alarm clock went off at 5:30am, I wished I could hit the snooze button, but he doesn’t quite work that way. I got him from his room and gave him a big kiss as we landed in my bed. I fed him then we both fell asleep for another hour or so. As usual when he woke up, he pushed up his body really fast with the biggest smile on his face, reached for me and kept rubbing on my face with his little hands. My heart melted… In a few seconds he rolled over to his dad… Babbling and tugging on his dad’s ear and lips. I’m not sure there’s anything else that’s more uncomfortable and amazing at the same time. Haha
I got dressed and headed to my first few meetings for the day which happened to be at a children’s hospital. The hospital was beautiful. Fun colors, activity rooms, different foods and so much more. For a second you could almost miss what was really going on but as I walked in, it felt too personal. Each child I came across seemed like he could be mine. You could see the innocence in their eyes, the longing to jump around like my little boy and then you could see so much pride as each parent interacted with their child. You imagined they were sad but were doing everything to make their little one forget any pain.
All the fun colored walls were lit up by those gorgeous little hopeful faces. Though you couldn’t tell for sure, it was clear their illnesses ranged from ones that didn’t seem so serious to Down syndrome and cancer. I was heartbroken but their strength, pride and hope was inspiring and gave me a reality check.
Too often people think of fitness from a very shallow and superficial perspective. It’s about having a bomb figure or some nice abs, but the reality is that it could be the difference between a peaceful or painful life and even death. Unless we have personal ties to someone struggling, we walk around oblivious of what the situation could be even for us.
See, we get this one body… Just one. There’s parts of it that are just totally out of our control but then there’s so much that we can do to care for it and help it weather random storms. Don’t take today for granted, there are so many that wish they could start where you are but are dealt a different set of cards. So let’s have grateful hearts and put our all into caring for what we have been given. Learn your body and do your part… then take some time out to help someone else feel better cause you never really know what they are going through.
Photos by www.akibolastudio.com
