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: Woodward was amazing!! The scene was incredible. We all had a magical unforgettable time – everyone skated great and everyone skated safe – no major injuries (except for Irene’s chin and a tequila hangover)
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: I will actually be writing about my experience during this four day meca of unbelievable skating in its entirety to be finished as soon as my two fingers can type it up.
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: For right now, let me try and in some small way, try and relate the emotional significance to you that this event evoked in just one of its participants.
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: My brother was handicapped at age 8 from a car accident. He was a quadriplegic from then on. He just suddenly passed away last July, he was forty years old. The entire time he was incarcerated in a body that was no longer physically responsive, he never once was angry, scared, jealous of those more physically fortunate, or complained or bemoaned about his physical limitations. Not once! He was never ever bitter that he would never know the full, physically rich lives we often take for granted.
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: He was such an inspiration to me. People always comment that I am always happy and cheerful. A large part of this cheeriness comes form realizing how fortunate I truly am. What could I possible be unhappy about when I consider my condition and fortunate circumstance vis-ŕ-vis my brother.
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: I always considered him a super person for his continually optimistic view of his condition and situation. He was a super man. Recently, Christopher Reeves, the former actor that became famous playing Super Man in movies and was suddenly paralyzed from the neck down due to a horse riding accident, passed away. He was like my brother, a quadriplegic wrongly confined to live the rest of their life in a wheel chair unable to move.
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: Christopher Reeves, like my brother, showed incredible courage and character by never giving up or giving in to self imposed pity and sadness. On the contrary, Christopher Reeves really did much more for the common good and became more publicly active since becoming paralyzed.
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: To remind me, and pay respect to these two incredible individuals, I bought a Super Man logo belt buckle and tee shirt, so if anyone commented on them, I could tell them this story.
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: Well, since my brother’s death, I have felt a supreme sense of loss, guilt and fundamental sadness. While he was alive I should have done more with him, I should have been a better brother, I should have…I should have… I should have…
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: My father from my earliest childhood memories till his passing seven years ago, has always preached, lectured and instilled in me that a man should be in complete control of his emotions. I have forever strived to live up to his ideal of a man in considerable control of his emotion state. To a fault perhaps. I was so in control of my emotions, especially because I had to be strong for the rest of family concerning my brother’s passing, that I almost became emotionless.
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: Since my brothers passing, I had not cried or truly expressed my grief once yet, yet my heart was inconsolably sad. Since his passing, I have had a indescribable feeling that my unnaturally rigid grip on my emotions had robbed my of even the ability to properly morn for my beloved brother.
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: When I came home from the Woodward gathering, I had such a menagerie of incredible wonderfully rich emotions swimming all around inside of me, consuming me.
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: That night, I put on the Super Man logo tee shirt to go out to dinner with my wife. As I was leaving, my mother mentioned the tee shirt. I very serenely started to tell her of the significance and meaning of why I was wearing the tee shirt. The same story I just imparted to you. Now, realize, some people at Woodward had already asked my about the Super Man belt bucked and I was able to calmly impart the significance of it to them without any extraordinary emotional outbursts.
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: Well, I started telling my mother the same story I just told to you and I completely rupture into uncontrollable tears. In front of my mother and wife, I cried and cried deep long unabashed sobbing tears of extremely repressed emotional anguish.
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: It felt so so good.
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: The Woodward experience gave such an incredible bounty of beautiful emotional memories that it actually gave me back the ability to let go of my emotions and truly feel pain, as well as joy, at there highest most beautiful exquisite purest form.
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: I am actually again shedding teas as I tell you this.
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: This is what happened to me at Woodward. Please forgive the long explanation.
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: Thank you everyone involved with this.
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: Special thanks to Bernard for creating this forum. Brian and Chris Edwards for coordinating and putting the wonderful event on, and all the other wonderfully great people that came and played with us.
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: Thank you, thank you, thank you,
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: lee
: i hope you all will allow a reply from what i am told is referred to as a "skate betty".from the spectators point of view and as brians wife this was also a truly magical weekend for me.i had the oppotunity to spend some very nice time talking to each of you personally and watching you skate-how nice it was to finally watch someone other than brian do their thing.it gave me a new perspective on the sport and a chance to meet some wonderful people.the energy surrounding the event was palpable!
speaking as someone who knows what moves and motivates brian the weekend was a dream come true for him.as adults we often lose sight of capturing the feeling of a child christmas morning.thie weekend was a thousand christmases rolled into one for brian.i am so glad that i was able to be a part of this.i hope that some of your pictures captured the karma of the event because it was obviously about more than rollerskating,it was about people coming together and sharing.lee,your testimony proves this point beautifully-thankyou for sharing.
best of luck to all of you in your endeavors and thanks for sharing time with me.
martha
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