I just got in from my friend's funeral and this is what I get in my email.  Right when it is easiest to doubt my ambitions and goals, that's when inspiration and fate keep pushing you where you need to be.  After reading this letter, wow, I know this is where I need to be.  Good people deserve to know where determination can get them.  Again, I have been shown when I needed it that this program needs to happen and can help everyone achieve the extraordinary in hopes of becoming normal once again.

Greg,
 
I set here with tears streaming down my face as I read your web site.  I am so proud of what you are doing with your life.  Live life to the fullest!!!!!  On Sept 10th 2009, at the age of 7, one of my twin sons died of a brain anuerysm while he was running home for dinner.  We have started a foundation in his honor called BallParks4Him, The Zachary Siegfried Foundation.  If you get time you can check out our web site  www.ballparks4him.org 
 
I have been having trouble getting funding for our project and somedays feel like throwing in the towel.  After reading your bio, I can and never will give up.  Baseball was a dream for our family and we will still have that dream thru the fields located behind our home.
 
Just yesterday I brought two teenage boys home from our church to play with my surviving twin and when I went outside my twin son, Kyle, was teaching these boys things his father has taught him and his brother throughout the years.  Teenage boys couldn't even catch or throw a football or baseball and my 8 year old is teaching them as a father would teach his sons.
 
For me my journey is about the children in our community.  I am not able to nurture Zachary and watch him grow but I can nurture his foundation and watch other children grow as productive young adults
 
Thank you for being you,
 
Melissa Siegfried
2 corrithians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight

Three years removed from college and it is amazing how much I have changed.  Intellectually I have grown so much.  I have written a book.  I’m in the process of selling said book.  Out of the blue I decided to take Rhetorical Approaches to Daily Discourse.  Every day since graduating, I find myself expanding upon the knowledge gained in that one 4-credit class.  Perspectives that I never even thought about during college have become innate states of being for me today.

Baseball is honestly the furthest thing from my mind.  I’m driving my own car independently and I am realistically contemplating a move to Colorado.  While these are milestone developments for a stroke-impaired boy to attain as a man, sometimes the greatest form of change is simply attaining the default sense of normalcy.

In some respects, change means remaining the same.  I have not gotten even close to weighing 265 pounds.  I have kept my weight off.  I have maintained my workout regimen.  I have maintained relationships with friends.  Friends that are now telling me that I must come to Homecoming on Saturday.  …Why?  They WANT to see me.

I only just gained my self-confidence during my senior year, but I have kept it.  It has developed into an actual social life and an actual life that I want to pursue further every day.  That is where I currently find myself.  And what continues to make it great is that I have friends who want to celebrate where we have gotten ourselves.  They want to do it together…and they want to include me in the event.

It isn’t that I have found acceptance; I have found comfort and a life that I enjoy living.  If that isn’t a reason to celebrate, well, my friends give me reason enough to do such because they show everything I have gained and attained is meaningful and impactful.  Independence is an amazing thing, but it’s made all the greater by the quality I have maintained and reflecting on the journey that brought me here to this moment.

I was walking to the gym during my lunch hour at work and my friend mentioned how he needs to get back to the gym, but that work is so busy and even when he can get away his mind is still on work.  I could even hear the stress in his voice.
 
I guess I come off as an easygoing guy.  I may get stressed at times and, even though I may verbally tell people I am stressed, I carry myself calmly.  Breaking up my day really helps with that.  Streaming everything together is not a good approach to successfully getting through your day.  Even though I stream my day together, it’s streamed with completely different activities.  I go straight from working at my desk down to the gym then back to working at the computer, but my mind feels free because I have given myself a break and a burst of outside stimulus.  Taking a break is important for achieving success, and maintaining that regimen creates a successful lifestyle.  Everyone needs a break simply to let your brain recharge and your motivation and mental state to replenish.  Otherwise you hit burnout, both figuratively and literally.
 
Today’s realization literally came from casually talking to a friend across the natural course of my day.  People are inherently stressed.  Take 5 minutes and go for a walk.  Get outside of the office.  At the very least take 30 seconds and just breathe deeply and treat yourself to a hot chocolate.  (It is getting cold after all.)  You need at least a small break across the day.  It does nobody, especially yourself, any good if you’re eating yourself alive…because that is what you wind up doing.  If you can’t take even 30 seconds to simply breathe, then you are being suffocated, again both figuratively and literally.

Rest In Peace, Kyle DeVine.  You are a true friend.  There is no past tense here because you are not gone.  You're always around and it is only a matter of time before we all see you again.

Kyle, dude seriously, you made me feel important in a time where I did not know who I was.  While I was constantly trying to find myself and doubted my importance, you embraced me as a true friend for the person that I naturally am.  You made me feel accepted and I know we fell out of touch, but I always have held you in high, high regard.  Nothing has changed.

I still remember freshman year when we realized we owned the same black B.U.M. Equipment shirt with the gray stripe along the sleeves.  Luckily, we never wore it the same day.  I kept trying to fit in with the majority of people, but you always accepted me for the person I was.  You got to know the true me and we always smiled and had fun together.

You never forced me to do anything.  Even when you and Chad stole a discman from a locker, you never questioned me for shying off.

We graduated together and we meant to meet up.  We meant to hang out and, even though it didn't happen, I know it didn't lessen our friendship.  You ARE my friend.  You ARE loved and for standing by me when I didn't have anybody else, that is a friendship I will never forget.

I could go on and on, but I have a busy day tomorrow and you always wanted me to stay focused on my goals and be smart.  I've only been to one funeral before, and I never actually went in to watch my Granny's funeral.  I got it approved from work to attend yours and I fully intend to show up with our B.UM. shirt and those purple slip on shoes that Chad always made fun of.  (And yeah, he and I are meeting up for lunch this weekend.  We've been putting it off, but we swear not to do that anymore.)

You aren't gone, my friend.  You're just befriending me and everyone in a larger scale now.  Thank you for not treating me the way that so many people did back then and seeing the friend that I always wanted to be to someone.  I'm so happy I got to be that friend to you.

For not seeing each other as much as either of us would have liked, we sure have a solid, constant friendship.  I can't wait to honor that and continue to honor it, the same way you have respected and befriended me since we first met.