Superheroes in our Hearts

As a kid you dream of becoming a superhero, you want to fly anywhere, save the world, be invincible and be stronger than anything that confronts you. You idolize these people because of the special powers they have and the way the use them. That’s every normal kids childhood, but it was different for me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved superman more than anything, but the way I saw it, my parents were my own superheroes. They were the protectors of my world. But just like a kid, when one of your superheroes falls, it’s the worst feeling in the world, and that’s just what happened to me.

We are a country family, we always have been. We lived on a farm, we bread cattle, we had chickens, dogs, horses, all the standard country livestock and even though I love being a farm kid, my dreams were bigger than staying there for now and they knew that. I have no doubt I’ll end up back on the farm one day.

Playing basketball and football as I grew up was always difficult when most of the competition resided in the city, and when you are too young to drive - it falls back to mum and dad. Every problem I had with school, they’d fix it. If I had problems in basketball, they’d step in and take over. They’d be there to direct me with any situation and help me grow as a young man. I feel very confident in saying that without their influence over my life in many different ways, I wouldn’t be the man I am today.

I’ve never seen my dad cry, nor did I think I was ever supposed to. He is the man of the house, the alpha male, the rock of the family, and the day I saw him break down was the day I started to question everything I ever believed in. It was a weekend and I was at the gym, only to return to my car to find 20 missed calls from my sister. Immediately I knew something was wrong and I called back and she said to get home as soon as possible as mums test results didn’t go as planned. Mum had been having some health issues, and even though recent tests said she was fine, she knew she wasn’t, and kept pushing the issue with the doctors. Something I used to get irritated by, the fact she would be so concerning if I even coughed once, was something I took for granted being an immature teen. The shield she would protect me with, was something I wish I could have forever.

I got home and was met at the door by my dad, and before he could get any words out, he just broke down in tears and hugged me. He told me that mum had cancer. I just fell down, and those three words were pounding on my body like a hammer, it was unbearable. She was my superhero - she’s not supposed to fall? This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I started to question everything. Why did God let bad things happen to good people? My mum was the perfect woman, why her?

I told my mum a couple of days later that I wasn’t going to college in America anymore, I had to be here for her. She wouldn’t even let me finish my argument before she assured me that it would only hurt her more if she knew the reason I wasn’t chasing my dreams was because of her illness. She told me I had to go, if not for myself, then for her. She was unselfish like that; she would go out of her way to make sure I am happy no matter what the cost. That’s what made her so special. She may not be able to fly, or shoot webs out of her hands, but her love and affection were the only superpowers I ever needed.

Going to school on the other side of the world when your mum was battling cancer was a tough thing to get used to, but I managed. I managed because I knew she was stronger than anything that she would face.

There were plenty of days during my first years at college where I wanted to pull the pin and leave. Things were just too hard for me, maybe I was struggling in class or on the basketball court, and any little thing seemed to be magnified. Especially my freshman year when I broke my foot and had to sit out the entire basketball season. I just didn’t want to do it anymore, and worse off, I didn’t think I could. Yet my mum was the first to remind me that things could be worse. She would message me everyday letting me know that if she can smile and fight this then I could get through anything. She shielded me from all the thoughts that told me to give up and quit, and it made me realize just how incredibly strong my mum was.

Just as I thought that maybe we would get through all of this, I received the phone call from my dad that I had been dreading. It was time to go home. Not even 12 hours after I hung up the phone, I was on the plane heading to Australia. I managed to spend a good week with my mum before things started to go south. As she was sitting in her hospital bed, we’d just talk all day and every day. We laughed. We cried. We hugged and we just enjoyed having the whole family together. We talked about my best memories with my basketball and we spoke about what the future held. She just told me how I could do whatever I wanted in my life, I just had to keep flying.
            A week later, she passed away.

Something I had tried so hard to prepare myself for, hit me like a train I never saw coming. It hurt, it still does hurt, but I know she’s never really gone. I sat in that hospital room that day, and I just gazed at the sky. The sun rose from behind the clouds and touched my face, and I knew it was her. At night, I just sit in my room and talk. There’s no one else around, but I know I am not alone. There’s no one to talk back to me, but I know someone is listening. I may not be able to hear her speak to me anymore, but I can definitely feel it. Sometimes I catch myself smiling for no reason, and I realize it’s her. Sometimes I cry, and I feel her arms wrap around me. It’s not the same as it used to be, but it’s just as comforting.

Now I ask myself, how can I ever say thank you to the hero who not only made me the man I am today, but gave me everything I would ever need? There are just no words to do it justice. Instead, I have something to live for each and every day. To fight like her. To smile like her and to ultimately live on through her strength and love forever.

She didn’t lose her fight. For every day that she smiled and fought it, she beat it. The way she raised our family and protected us was proof that she was something much more than a superhero could ever be.

She was an angel. And she forever will be.

The More Things Change - The More They Stay The Same

I always dreamt of going away to college to follow my dreams and live what I pictured as a great life, but what I never could have predicted exactly what would happen during those times. Being away from home for 11 months of the year, I always knew that things would change at home when I came back to visit each year. The previous two years I had returned, it was pretty evident that things had changed - new buildings had opened while others had closed down, my mates had moved off in their own directions and even some of my family had moved house. Yet, this time when I came home, it really hit me that the more things changed here, the more they stayed the same.

As most know, my family has been through quite a lot over the past few years including my mum’s battle with cancer and most recently my dad nearly losing his hand. While I haven’t been there in the flesh for the successful recoveries for both of them, I’ve been with them every step of the way. Strength – something I thought was always evident in the weight room was given a new definition as I watched my parents get through those tough times. Moments in their lives may have changed, but they’re still the same.

Coming home this year, I already knew I was going to see changes, but I don’t think I was quite ready to see what I did.

My Biggest Fans

This year was the first year my grandparents didn’t meet me at the airport when I arrived home. They recently moved from their home of many many years to a more appropriate apartment, easily accessible to all our family. My grandpa has been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s so things are evidently harder for him and the family. The last few months before I went away for my first year of college we began to see the signs of this in grandpa, and then when I returned 11 months later, it was well on it’s way into haunting him. 11 months is a long time away and it’s not until you see the changes at home do you realize just how long it really is. Alzheimer’s is one of the worst things you can watch someone close to you have to battle with, the feeling of helplessness is something I wouldn’t wish for anyone, but it’s life and the only way to deal with it is to have faith, accept it and live in and cherish every moment.

My first stop when I got home was to surprise my grandparents at their new place, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I was so excited to get home. I had heard many stories from mum and dad while I was away of Grandpa forgetting peoples names and not remembering his own family, so I was scared as to what could transpire, but I was ready for it too. I understand the way these things are, but you just never really want to accept them but you have to.

The video below shows my surprise to my grandparents and it was one of the best feelings I have had this past year. I walked through the door and the immediate smiles and hugs instantly turned to tears of joy as they both just sat there and cried they were so happy to see me home. It’s moments like these that you cherish and enjoy, and it’s moments like these that can never be taken away. My grandparents used to be at every single game of my sisters and mine and even all my cousins. I distinctly remember one high school footy game where someone was giving me a mouthful and my grandpa walked all around the boundary and had a few words to say to this bloke. Every game, no matter where it was, they’d be there, for every one of us, and I never truly understood how they managed it. Whether they were yelling at the opponents, or cheering for our team, everyone knew who my grandparents were. They were crowd favorites at the games and it was easy to see why.

Yet when I came home this time I was expecting to see everything had changed, but I saw that they haven’t stopped doing that at all, just the way they go about it. They’ve watched every one of my games on the TV or computer and I know that maybe my grandpa can’t actually see me out there, but he knows where I am. I can picture them yelling at the TV in joy or at the other team just the way they always did. They were always my biggest fans and I can’t see that ever changing. Just because everything has changed, nothing is really all that different.

It was right at that moment when I walked into the room of their brand new apartment, and saw their happy smiles instantly turn into tears of joy, that I realized that my biggest triumphs and successes aren’t on the court or in the classroom, but in the eyes and the hearts of my family, and ultimately, that’s the best win of all.

It Was Always About Something More

It’s a crazy feeling.

It’s just an indescribable feeling.

These past two weeks have been a roller coaster unlike anything I’ve ever been apart of before.  So many highs, so many dream’s coming true. So many moments of pure elation and joy that I wish I could just bottle up and relive at any time I wish. Yet for the past two weeks, it’s always been about something bigger than myself.

Just under two weeks ago, my sister called me from back home and simply started the conversation with “Hey Pete, don’t freak out, but dad is in the emergency room at the hospital right now.” – Note: Never start a conversation with words like that, you’d be surprised the number of thoughts that overload your brain in the two seconds before she says “everything is ok”.

My dad had had an accident working on the farm back home that could have cost him his entire hand. A freak accident that left him sitting in a hospital bed, no pain meds, awaiting surgery to fix his hanging limb. However, the surgery was successful and he will make a full recovery, which is all I needed to hear. He's a strong bloke that one.

You have never experienced a feeling where you sit, helplessly, across the other side of the world while your dad sits in a hospital bed in one building whilst your mum is across the hospital on the other side having a major scan for her cancer treatments. And yet, I just sit in my room, not being able to be beside either of them during any of it. My dad hasn’t missed one of my mums appointments in the four years she has been battling this cancer, not one, until that day. That was tough for me to swallow, but seeing how strong my mum has been for the last four years, you just can't show anything but strength, for their sake. They make that possible, each and every day.

Family Over Everything

Yet here I sit, two weeks later. I managed to travel from Long Island where I won my second Championship in two years, to Ohio to win my first ever NCAA Tournament game then to Florida to play the best team in the country on one of the worlds biggest stages. Yet after all these life changing memories and triumphs, it falls short to something much bigger and more important than it all.

After speaking to my dad the night before my game in Ohio, he told me that after four years of battling cancer, my mum has been cleared to have surgery to remove the remaining tumors from her lungs. After four years of chemotherapy and more, it’s all about to be over. The news my family had been waiting for, had finally come. Every battle, every tear, every struggle was worth it, just to hear my parents cry in joy and ecstasy about the news. Those are the tears I can handle. 

I know my parents wanted to be court side for each of these last games, but it just wasn't meant to be, this news was much more important. I know that hurt them, I know how bad they wanted to be here. But it was the best news I could hear. It was always about something more than basketball, it always has been.

All my parents kept saying before every one of my games was how proud they were of who I have become and that they couldn’t ask for anymore than what I had already achieved. Yet, I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to do it for my family more than anything else.

That helpless feeling I had whilst I sat in my bed and prayed for each of my parents in hospital would slowly disappear after each game when my parents would speak to me in tears about how proud and happy they were. That’s the biggest win of all for me. If I could bottle up that feeling, that indescribable moment – it’d be the happiest moments of my life.

Everyone tells you what's good for you. They don't want you to find your own answers… They want you to believe theirs.

Why is it that we let others influence our lives? Why do we let unimportant or inevitable changes around us affect our how we feel?

I feel that's where a lot of people's problems in their life arise from. Whether we choose to admit it or not, we are so vulnerable to not being accepted in life that conforming to others is such a common but dangerous habit.

When you're down in life, people try to bring you up, and usually we don't listen. That's life. When you're up, people want to bring you down, and again, we don't really listen. That's life too. But when you're torn down the middle, between happiness and sadness, just coasting along, why do we seek out others? If we don't listen to others when we perhaps should, why do we seek them when we probably shouldn't?

If you don't get what you want, you suffer. If you get what you don't want, you suffer. Even if you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. That's one of life's harshest crueltys. Too many questions in life are unanswered, and it's the people who think that they have the answers that try to get you on board. Maybe, just maybe, everyone's answers to some of life's toughest problems, are different?

I'm a firm believer that the key to life is happiness. And I wish I had an answer for all the tough questions about life, but the reality is, I don't and probably never will. I don't believe anyone else can make you happy, it's your own decision. Do not misunderstand me, people can make you smile and laugh, but I think being happy is ultimately a choice.

All through life I had been sustained by an illusion - Happiness through victory - And now that illusion has disappeared. We are no more happier, no more fulfilled, for all our achievements. So I looked up, and saw through the clouds that maybe we had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to get through it. All our life we had been busy seeking happiness, but never truly finding it or sustaining it.

Life is too short to be wondering about the future or dwelling on the past. All we can focus on is right now. Being happy in this moment, because before you know it, it could all be over.

Enlightenment is not an attainment - it is a realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and yet nothing changes.