Tres Hombres

On Saturday, I visited with a young man who had his amputation on Friday, same day as my birthday. Jennifer and I met with him and his wife along with their infant a few months ago, and I gave him a copy of Scott Rigsby's book "UnThinkable" along with the article about Dr. Tom White in Runner's World.

I had not heard any feedback until Scott and I were talking about the Nitro foot he sent me. He told me this man's wife had sent him a letter saying the book 'had changed her husband's life.' This really touched me, and I wondered if Scott fully realized what his book had done. His journey helped give another the courage to do what he knew needed to be done, and to know the amputation would not only remove a painful limb but more importantly, remove the limitations on his life. To take someone who has been through 16 foot surgeries, and been in such discomfort at night that he slept on the couch apart from his wife so he could be distracted from the constant drumming of the pain by the television, and to show him the path to a new life, well, it is nothing short of miraculous.

Even so, with surgery there always comes the risk of complications, that even under the best circumstances things can and do go horribly wrong. In life we often lose sight that there are no guarantees; artificial ones simply demean us all. Many great things have happened because humans set fear of the unknown aside, from discovering new continents to new worlds to heights and depths only dreamed of.

It is odd in the chaos that is daily life that sometimes things come together as if not by chance but design. Scott Rigsby wrote a book that I gave to another man who in turn had his life changed...on my birthday. Words are not living by example, only actions make that real. So I take words for what they are, but living those words are what I believe in, and I trust those who live without fear.

"The way to do is to be."

- Lao Tzu