It was a cold winter night on January 7th, 2013. I was working at a local sub shop in Wisconsin, Cousin’s Subs. I saw my middle school teacher and basketball coach eating with his family. The phone rang and I answered it like any other phone call. Except this time, it was my mom frantic on the other side. My dad had taken his own life. This is where it gets a little fuzzy, processing every kind of emotion in my head and what I just heard. I don’t really remember exactly what happened next, other than rushing out and leaving with tears down my face, thinking this can’t be real and has to be a dream. I remember slapping my face on my drive home, and specifically coming around the cul-de-sac in our neighborhood. As I came around the bend, I see police, ambulance, and fire truck lights. This is the point where it truly sets in and hits me, this is actually happening. My eyes begin to uncontrollably open up like a waterfall. As I run inside from my car, my mom meets me, and we share an embrace that I will never forget. Moments later they pass my mom and I in the hallway, carrying my dad out on a stretcher and in a body bag. One of the paramedics was a regular at the sub shop I worked at. To this day, we never exchanged words about that night, but every time we saw each other after, there were words communicated without having to say them.
I moved to Colorado on July 3rd, 2024. I had done the incline once before moving out here from Wisconsin. I love to challenge myself and push myself, and right away that first time, I fell in love with the incline, and it spoke to me. When I finally pulled the trigger to move out to Colorado, I knew I would want to continue to do the incline as much as I could. With living in Littleton, I’m not able to do the incline as much as I would like. But the incline has become my happy place, my calm, and my peace. I love the community aspect of it and how everyone comes together to motivate and cheer everyone on whether it’s your 1st time or 100th time doing it, and whether you made it in 3 hours or 50 minutes.
Fast forward to April 15th of this year, I had decided to try to do the incline more than once for the first time in the same day, my goal was 3 trips. I know people go back down the stairs, but I always take the trail, so I knew I was in for a good, hard, long workout. I finish my second lap, I know I can do this. As I’m walking from Barr Trail to the start of the incline, I see a bunch of lights coming from police, ambulance, and fire trucks right by the incline. In my head this doesn’t seem good, but I just keep walking to the bottom of the steps to start my final lap. As I was almost to the base of the incline to start again, about 10 paramedics are coming down carrying a stretcher with a body bag on it. Now my heart sinks to my feet. This is the first time I’ve seen this since my dad. I’m trying to process everything, what may have happened, and my emotions not even knowing the situation. I decided to continue my final lap, and even though this was someone I never knew, the whole time I was doing it, all I could think about was this individual as well as my dad. So I dedicated that lap to whomever that person was.
I feel like the incline has been engraved in my soul, it gives me a feeling like nothing else. I’ve always wanted to make a difference and to be a light for people when they are struggling. I’ve strived to show people what they can do if they put their mind to it and to never give up. I always try to do something to honor my dad and to do something in support of suicide awareness/prevention. My birthday is August 10th, and my dad’s would’ve been August 11th, he would be turning 60 this year. This year is no different, I have decided to challenge myself to do the incline and Barr Trail as many times as I can on the 10th and 11th in honor of him, anyone who has lost their own life to suicide, and anyone who has lost someone to suicide. My goal is to do 6 laps within 12 hours each day, totaling for 12 laps, 24 hours, 24,000 feet elevation gain, and 60 miles to honor how old my dad would be turning.
I chose Stay; For Life as my charity because they are fighting and advocating for men’s mental health along with suicide awareness and prevention. This has a very close place to my heart, as I know it does for many of you. I would love support from anyone as I take this challenge on. While I’m asking for donations to help to make a difference, I’m not expecting that. Your words and encouragement while I do this are more than enough and more than I could ask for. Together let’s make a difference and bring a light and more awareness to something that desperately needs more attention.
I will be posting pictures for each summit I do on the incline throughout the two days, so that you can follow along as well with my journey and see where we all end up together.
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