Loving gestures from Strangers

     The past few months have come and gone pretty quickly, but not without its challenges. Looking back on it, there’s been a ton that has happened. Some really fun and good, other stuff a little more challenging and scary. When life gets crazy like that it is easy to forget about the things that make us happy. Even if those things are small.

    Lexis health has been a little rollercoaster lately. We just made it out of the hospital again not too long ago, after a 5 day inpatient stay. Now once again we get to go through the process of resetting our brains and realizing were good enough to be home and live life. 

    Living life and embracing it is easier said than done at times. Everyday is a new opportunity to wake up and be happy. To see the good in that day. To try and be better that day. I like to think of myself as a pretty happy and optimistic dude. But even I find it hard somedays to not be scared or anxious about what the day may hold. Especially with health being such a sensitive and touchy subject in our young lives. Then I sit there and I watch my amazing wife push through another crappy morning, and realize that I too can push through. 

    Lexi always does her best to live life to its fullest. What that looks like varies from day to day, and sometimes I find myself and my body struggling to keep up with all of her ideas and crazy things she wants to go and do when she’s having a good day. And let me tell you all something. That girl has a scary ability to pull strength out of thin air. She is willing her body to do stuff here and its amazing to watch. 

    Today’s adventure took us to Zion National Park. Lexi and her family had been there in the past so they were excited to go back. To my recollection I have never been so it was going to be a new experience for me. Understanding that her body didn’t have a lot of strength, or “juice” as I like to call it sometimes, we tried to make things simple and easy while still enjoying this beautiful earth God has given to us. We worked our way to the transportation area and by the time we hit the first bus she was already out of Juice.  She was getting baked by the sun, and you could just see her body was already trying to shut things down for the day. 

(Side note: Look at how many days we’ve both been cancer free. Pretty stoked to say the least!)

    So we decided to find a wheelchair and continue on our journey. This is where the day starts to get interesting in my opinion. It’s not uncommon to see elderly people in wheelchairs or using walkers to get by and enjoy life. It’s a little more rare to see a beautiful young girl who looks totally healthy on the outside sitting in a wheelchair. Because of that you get a lot of curious eyes and people pointing out the obvious. We’re used to the staring and the pointing and I do my best to ignore it because I know I’m not innocent of being curious myself at times. As we got back on the bus to continue down into the park, it was a big scene because they rolled out the wheelchair lift and all and lifted lex into the bus while she was sitting in the wheelchair. There wasn’t enough room on the little bus we were on so the rest of her family crammed into the bus behind us. Once we finally got lex situated and sitting there in her wheelchair with me standing next to her, I started to notice some not so happy faces. People pointing and whispering again. Like I said, a normal thing, except for these were the people who just got kicked out of their seats and were now standing to make room for lex and her wheelchair. 

    I tried to brush it off, knowing that the most important thing in the moment was to just get lex to the next stop so we could enjoy the park. After we drove down the road a few minutes we came to a stop, and I see lexis family jump out of the bus behind us and run up to our section to let us know we needed to get off. Turns out the busses were going back down the mountain and we needed to be going up. So I hurry and try to start unbuckle her wheelchair so we can get her pulled off. As I’m in the middle of doing so I hear this HUGE sigh, and then someone says,”UGHHH, and now they're getting off!?” I wanted to jump up and yell at the person right then, but I was struggling to get Lexi unhooked from all of the straps so my brain didn’t have the time to do both. We didn’t have time to lower the whole lift again so we took her out of the wheelchair and her parents helped her out of the bus while I carried the wheelchair out. 

    We finally made it off the bus, and as I put lexis wheelchair down I had to take a quick walk to try and cool myself off as the bus pulled away. I had every possible word bouncing around and was trying my best to not shout them as the bus was driving off. Lexis family got her situated again in her wheelchair and started walking to the bus stop that would take us back up the mountain. I stayed behind a little, just taking my time and processing what just happened. As I started to catch up to the family, Emily slowed down and asked me what was going on. At that point I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Filled with frustration and anger I kindly told Emily that people are stupid and that they should mind their own business. And I did that all without using ANY swearwords believe it or not. (That’s a lie. I definitely swore haha)

    After having a second to calm down we got back to our adventure and it was really fun. I realized I was just happy to have another day with my wife. Too many times Ive been told she wouldn’t make it this far, and now we are going to celebrate her 21st birthday tomorrow. Lucky for us there was a great path that was paved so we could push lex in her wheelchair. We got to a point where there was a sign that said, “End of wheelchair access” or something like that. We definitely didn’t listen and just kept pushing her.  We hiked down this trail for a little while before deciding to turn around because a storm was moving in. 

It was really fun and we saw some really pretty things. As we walked up to the bus stop again I started to dread the process all over. I was worried we were going to have more eyes, and fingers pointed right at lex. And because the storm was moving in quickly everyone was trying to get back down the mountain at once. We waited in line and luckily for us the same driver who helped us the first time spotted us and pulled us out of the crowd to have us wait at the front of the line when he got there. His bus finally pulled up, and we started the whole thing again. Lift coming out of the bus, people watching, anxiety kicking in. I get her settled on the lift with me standing on it too. The bus driver starts to pick us up into the bus and as we are about halfway up, we just hear this really loud, “CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK” and it stopped right there.

    It couldn’t lift us up any higher. It just stopped….. Frantically trying to solve the issue I jumped off the lift and into the bus thinking maybe my weight was too much. The bus driver lowers the lift down, with lex still on it, and tries again. Again it only makes it halfway and then stops. In a hurry to get on the bus we call an audible and decide to lift her out of the wheelchair again. So he lowers the lift once more and Kris and Emily grab her by both sides to support her. At this point she’s wiped. She had a wobble and was having a hard time standing on her own. I tried to hurry and get her wheelchair into the bus but was stuck at an awkward angle because the lift was still out and I couldn’t get a clean grab at her wheelchair. The whole time this is all happening people are just filing into the busses behind us waiting to get down the mountain.  Then out of nowhere some random stranger comes  and decides to try and help fold her wheelchair up to make things a little easier. He didn’t know how to do it, so Kris had to let go of lex quick and help the man figure it out, and once they got it folded up, they lifted the wheelchair up to me, and then we finally all got lex into the bus together.

    We sit down on the seats and people start to fill the rest of the bus. As the stranger walks by I thank him for his help, and he just smiles and says no problem. Thinking back on it now is making me start to cry. In the moment I was feeling so overwhelmed I couldn’t even appreciate his loving gesture. But now as I sit here in bed, with my cute wife asleep next to me, tears are starting to fill my eyes. Thank you stranger, you were an angel for me today. Thank you for loving us going out of your way to help. I needed that today so badly. I didn’t even realize it, but I needed to be reminded that we aren’t in this alone. That others can offer help too. 

    The trip ended on a high note. What can I say. We made it back to our hotel safely and we had a good time. Lexi destroyed another day and was awesome. As for tomorrow….. I'll worry about that tomorrow.

I just want to leave it off with this. Sometimes life gets hard. Sometimes life gets scary. Sometimes we feel anger and frustration at others for being judgmental. We cant control what others do, we can only control what we do. But we cannot let the hard and negative overshadow the happy and joyous victories. And remember we are never alone. God loves us, and so does our Savior Jesus Christ.

So if you find yourself struggling to be happy just remember that you are not in this alone. There are others who love you and who want to help you. And if you are having a hard time getting through your struggle, well then maybe be the stranger who makes someone else’s day better like that bus driver and the stranger did for me today. Because when we help make someone else’s day better, it helps us feel better inside too.