Why Now?

Lately, I’ve been asked the same question by a surprising number of interns, nurses, therapists, and young doctors: “Why now?”

Why now, after all these years, am I finally doing the MRIs, the X-rays, the physical therapy, the specialists, the weight loss, the pain management, the orthopedic appointments, and the spine evaluations for my neck and lower back?

Most of them are looking at scans and charts that read like a maintenance log on an old machine—one held together much longer than it probably should have been.

Then they ask when the pain started. I usually tell them the truth. Twenty-one. Twenty-two, maybe. Although if I’m being completely honest, my first major surgery was on my knee when I was seventeen.

That answer usually earns me a puzzled look. Because what they really want to know is this: “If you’ve been hurting this long… why did you wait until now to take care of yourself?”

The funny thing is, the answer isn’t really medical. It’s personal.

For a very long time, I lived with pain like it was part of my identity. Not just physical pain, but the kind that settles into your thinking. The kind that quietly convinces you that survival is enough. The kind that teaches you to endure instead of heal.

You adapt. You compartmentalize. You wake up, go to work, provide, keep moving, crack a joke here and there, and convince yourself this is just what life is supposed to feel like.

And after enough years, something dangerous happens: You stop imagining a future version of yourself worth taking care of.

That’s the part nobody sees in the charts. The MRIs don’t show exhaustion. The X-rays don’t capture hopelessness. Pain scales don’t measure how long someone has been emotionally running on fumes.

There were years when I honestly did not care much about waking up tomorrow. I was far from suicidal in the dramatic sense people usually imagine. It was quieter than that. More numb. More resigned. I simply didn’t have much of a desire to keep fighting for a longer life.

Constant pain can do that to a person. But along the way… something changed.

Maybe part of it came after the passing of my childhood friend, Pat D'Arcy. Losing people has a way of forcing you to look at your own clock differently. Suddenly, "someday" doesn’t feel unlimited anymore.

Maybe age has a way of clarifying things, too. I realized something I wish I had understood years ago: I no longer have a death wish. In fact, for the first time in a very long time… I genuinely want mornings.

Not because life suddenly became easy. Not because the pain disappeared. Not because I became fearless. But because I finally understand, there are people attached to my staying.

I have eight reasons to get out of bed now. Not abstract reasons. Not motivational poster reasons. Real ones.

Tina. More than forty years beside me. She has seen every version of me—the strong ones, the broken ones, and the exhausted versions that didn’t always know if they wanted to keep going. Through all of it, she stayed.

Alison and Cody. Our children. Proof that something good came out of me, even during seasons when I wasn’t convinced there was much good left to offer the world.

And then there are the five who changed the sound of my mornings entirely:

• Calli (8), watching the world with curious eyes and asking questions that deserve answers. She loves trying everything in life.

• August (6), full of energy, movement, and personality, trying to figure out the world in real time. He is a six-year-old Marlboro Man—without the tobacco, of course. He loves the cowboy life.

• Cole (5), navigating life differently and reminding the rest of us to slow down enough to truly see people. He knows so much about animals and dinosaurs—what they look like, the sounds they make. A regular Dr. Dolittle!

• Hattie (2), discovering everything like it’s brand new. She’s the Queen Bee who thinks she rules the roost, and she has her Pa wrapped completely around her finger.

• And Ruthie (6 months), just beginning her story. I can't wait to be a part of her journey.

Somewhere in all of this, my mind drifts back to the old television series Eight Is Enough.

Back then, I watched it as entertainment. A large family trying to navigate life, chaos, responsibility, laughter, exhaustion, and love, all under the same roof. I understand it differently now. Because eight really can be enough to keep a man going.

Eight people capable of pulling you out of despair without ever realizing they did it. Eight reminders that your presence matters. Eight reasons to endure another MRI, another specialist, another painful morning getting out of bed.

Not because life suddenly became easy—but because somewhere along the way, love quietly outweighed the pain. There was a time I woke up because I had to. Now I wake up because I’m needed.