You make this Happen...

This just came in from National...

  Great Read and inspirational as to why we do this.... 



   
All –  You make this happen.  She has been trying to write this for over a year. Came in Sunday night.
 
This is who you are helping.
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PS  Please rewrite the intro as needed and send to all of your volunteers, Leadership team, sponsors, advocates and anyone you may think will be interested. This is the kind if story that will be forwarded and raise awareness. Ask them to forward.
 
I have made sure that Megan wants this spread. She understands it will help the rest of the world to help the challenges these guys and families face and will help other folks in Ollie’s situation.  This is an AMZING family.
 
Also go to the HOW main page - https://www.facebook.com/HeroesontheWater - and share on your Chapter page and personal page. The more “share”s from FB page to another to another the more viral it will go.
 
This is an amazing story and the message we want to get out.
 
Again – YOU are making this happen.
 
Jim
 
Jim Dolan | President | Heroes on the Water
101-C N. Greenville Ave. #55, Allen, TX 75002 | 214-295-4541
www.HeroesOnTheWater.org
   
Donate Here | EIN 13-4367788 | Heroes on the Water is a 501(c)(3)
 
 
 
 
From: Megan
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2013 7:53 PM
To: Jim Dolan
Subject: Here ya go
 
It's like a painting in my memory—a single, significant moment of this journey. A few street lamps cast a surreal glow in the dark, early morning fog. He barely even looked at me as I dropped him off and helped with his gear. He didn't tell me goodbye; he didn't kiss me. As I drove away, I looked back up at him, planted in the middle seat of the white passenger van. The van's interior lights highlighted his hunched form. His jaw was set and I could feel his scowl even though it was hidden by his ball cap. No one else was in the van yet, but he was ready. He was a man on a mission. He was a man going fishing.

Heroes on the Water runs a 10 week program for wounded warriors recovering at BAMC. As an avid kayak fisherman, it was a perfect first post-injury outing for him.

After he returned from his first Afghanistan deployment in 2009, he bought a fishing kayak. Many of the guys coming home were buying motorcycles and sports cars, so I was quite supportive of the kayak expenditure. On Saturday mornings he loaded up the yak on our little Toyota Corolla and headed off to the lake by himself. He was always more relaxed and easier to get along with when he returned from those early morning fishing trips. When he deployed the second time, he daydreamed about fishing just to keep himself sane. On his care packages I drew lakes and kayaks, reminding him of what he had to look forward to when he came home.

The night they called to tell me he was injured, I paced our back patio as I made phone calls and arrangements. His kayak was there in the back yard, its outline visible in the porch light. Each time it caught my eye I wondered, “Will he ever be able to go out on the water again?”

The days following my notification were filled with chaos. I left my home in the middle of the night a few days after he was injured. I just ran out the door with a suitcase and never lived in that house again. We were reunited at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC—the old hospital before it moved over to Bethesda. When I got too far away from him, my knees went weak and I had to hold the wall for support. It was an interminable cycle of surgeries and recovering from anesthesia and pain crises. I wasn't sure that things were ever going to be okay, that we would ever live outside those walls again.

I was waiting for an elevator one afternoon with my friends who were there to support me. When the door opened we stood in stunned silence. Unloading from the elevator was a double amputee. Thrown over his shoulder was a kayak. A man. Two prosthetic legs. Carrying a kayak. In an elevator. In a hospital. In that moment, my friends and I knew that things were eventually going to be okay. My question was answered: “He will be able to go out on the water again.” We tried to convey the significance of the elevator kayak amputee, but Ollie didn't quite believe us yet. In those days, I'm not sure he believed in the existence of anything outside of that hospital room.

It was several more months before I dropped him off that foggy morning. There was a lot more pain, more surgeries, a cross-country move, a reunion with our children and several changes in living arrangements. He did not cope well with his necessary dependence on me and others—not only was he mostly unable to walk, he couldn't drive, and even needed assistance in the shower. He was taking a multitude of drugs in order to tolerate the pain of having pins in each of his toes. Some of those medications made him insufferably belligerent. It was a dark, unhappy time for us both. On fishing morning, he woke up with his alarm for the first time since the injury. He got himself up and dressed, then went to gather his fishing gear that he'd prepped the night before. Chad Hoover and his kayak fishing buddies hooked Ollie up with some rods, lures, a PFD and other goodies. He meticulously organized it all and sat waiting for me at the front door, his milk crate on his lap and his PFD thrown across the back of the chair. Resentment flowed out of him—at the time I thought he resented me. Looking back, I think he resented needing me.

I dropped him off and as I looked up at him sitting there insolently in the van, my heart broke. My fun loving, independent clown of a husband was now completely dependent on other people to do...everything. He was emasculated, broken, and diminished. I wondered (not for the first or last time) if this is how our lives would always be. At the time I failed to see the hope, though, in his belligerence—sitting there with his set jaw and his eyes forward. He was angry; he was robbed of his independence. But he was going fishing, come hell or high water.

When I picked him up after lunch, the change in him was astonishing. He was no longer balled up in pain and anger. His body was visibly relaxed, his face broke into an easy smile. The cocky banter that I love (even though I pretend it annoys me) was flowing freely. While he was in the kayak he was able to move freely and gracefully again. When he came back that afternoon, he was confident. He felt like a man again. Just one morning on the water eased months of pain and anguish. That morning was the first time I saw my husband really return from the war—Heroes on the Water brought him back to our family, back to himself.

Heroes on the Water brought him home.

Very touching, thanks for sharing.   

That was incredible. 

Great read. Thanks for sharing.

Ever since our first trip/adventure, I had to be involved with this effort. It is amazing to see what happens on the outings. Sharing our passion with these deserving people is an amazing thing. Thanks to all the volunteers over the last couple years. You indeed make this happen.

 

Thanks for sharing.

Very moving story!  Thanks for sharing Don.

       A letter like that sure affirms all of your efforts.

Awesome.

Thanks for sharing Don, and for all the work that you and all the HOW volunteers do!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Wow, what a story!
What a wife!
Had to get a tissue for this one

One day maybe there will be a weekend outing I could help out with.

One day maybe there will be a weekend outing I could help out with.

Copy that...  Keep June 1st open,   That is tentatively the Kelsey Bass Ranch date...  I heard Jon already put it on his calendar but has not notified us of that.... 

Glade to be part of the team.

Amazing story. Thanks for the dose of perspective. God Bless those two and all the families in their shoes.

One day maybe there will be a weekend outing I could help out with.

Copy that...  Keep June 1st open,   That is tentatively the Kelsey Bass Ranch date...  I heard Jon already put it on his calendar but has not notified us of that.... 

Calendar marked for June 1st.