Tragedy can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time.
I just experienced one of the worst in my life, a fire, taking many of my precious memories and life’s treasures. A long story for another time, added to an extensive list of incredibly difficult challenges I’ve faced throughout my life.
But, what most don’t know, is that just 4 days prior I had set in motion plans for an incredible fundraising campaign. My largest, and scariest, yet.
You see, as my 40th birthday approaches, I was feeling a bit unfocused, unsettled, and without many new goals. As friends celebrated marriages, births, graduations, second marriages, promotions, home buying, etc, I was searching for something to help me find a bit of purpose. Then I remembered that I had some goals, they just seemed so unattainable. Fly around the globe, buy a tiny house in Costa Rica, climb Kilimanjaro, find a sugar da….
Climb Kilimanjaro.
Yup. That was it. That was the goal that I would need to work towards for my milestone birthday. But why? For who, or what? If I’m going to climb one of the tallest mountains in the world, certainly someone would need to benefit somehow. Of course I love my turtles in Tambor, and I do my best to raise money for them, but I wanted to do good for people this time. So, naturally, my favorite Pittsburgh based charity, The Alexis Joy D’Achille Foundation for Postpartum Depression, would be the benefactor.
Last October a leather-bound notebook was purchased, jotting page after page of ideas, websites, personal thoughts, timelines…but the title page remained blank. I didn’t have the courage to write down what I actually wanted to do. So, to get just the tiniest bit of my toes wet, I sent Steven a text.
“I want to climb Kilimanjaro for my 40th birthday…and I want to raise $40k for AJD when I do it…let’s chat!”
To which he quickly replied,
“amazing! Yes, let’s chat! I love how your mind works!”
Fast forward to 4 days before the fire. I met with Steven, talked at length about the goal, the challenge of actually climbing the mountain, the good that the funds could do, and generally began to iron out the details of such an undertaking. While we threw around numbers and ideas, I was asked to think about the real reason why I support the Alexis Joy
Foundation…the less obvious reasons. Something I would need to delve into emotionally, for sure.
And then- fire. Displacement…homelessness. Loss. Emotions. Tragedy, again. And that’s when it hit me.
The reason I choose to support AJD isn’t because of all the “obvious” reasons. I’ve never been personally connected to a loss because of it, I don’t have children, I don’t have a family unit that was affected by it. What I do have, is some unresolved daddy issues, having lost my father tragically at a young age.
What I personally have come to know of the foundation, has all been because of Steven. It’s far more than a “triumph over tragedy” story for me. I see a little girl with her loving and doting father…doing all he can to protect her and give her everything she could ever need. I didn’t have that. I see someone who could have easily gone off the rails and fallen into a hole, but rather stayed afloat and allowed the support around him to build something larger than he likely expected. I didn’t have that either. Steven, quite simply, is an example of the father I wish I always had, but never did.
So, Happy Father’s Day.
What more appropriate a day to announce my newest, hugest, scariest goal.
CLIMB FOR JOY: raising $40k for my 40th
More to come soon, stay tuned.
As always, from,
The Outskirts of Heaven
(P.s. Early sponsorship opportunities available. I really did have things moving in the background before the fire.)
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