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It’s day 20 and I press forward. Yeah day 20! Okay I’m done celebrating and now looking for the future. I’ve still got a long road ahead of me and this week will be a challenge.
Yesterday afternoon I truly realized that food is a crutch for my feelings. In the long run a counselor would be a lot cheaper then dealing with the heath problems of being obese.
What happened: My wife sent me something about a close friend that had died in 2011. We where like family for years and knew each other from high school, the police academy, volunteer work, and trying to become cops together. He made it into the Buena Park Police department and then onto the SWAT Team, which was his dream, in the town he grew up in. We started to drift apart and then he had some problems mentally and I wasn’t there like I should have been to help him. As most of my friends in law enforcement and the Marine Corps he was doing well putting his life back together when he died during a SWAT Training event of I’m still not sure and it doesn’t really matter.
He died doing what he loved in a city he loved. And we should all be as lucky as he was to live our dreams. But as he put his life back together and had everything going for him his life was cut short and I’m left with guilt that I should have been a better friend and a friend that I’ll miss forever. He was one of the best men I’ve ever know.
I guess I haven’t dealt with all the grief because eight years later my wife showed me this:
I was a wreck for a couple hours with grief. Not that he would have loved the K9 donation as a way to keep his legacy alive, because he loved dogs and the department. I just wanted to sit down with a cake and some beer to make it go away. Really not helpful at all.
I talked to a friend at church who has lost a lot of the Marines he served with and helped me out so I could function after that. It was tough.
I made it through yesterday and headed strong into today. Even though writing this makes me a little sad thinking of my friend that is gone.
75 Hard I will Conquer,
Ben Branam