CONCLUSION

Friends Forever

I WALKED 10,000 STEPS YESTERDAY WITH TUESDAY BY MY SIDE. THAT’S not an estimate. It’s an exact count. Back and forth down the hotel hallway, ignoring the stares of curious guests.

On the long road to full mobility, I constantly look for fresh ways to motivate myself. My new Fitbit, the wearable fitness technology, is an excellent scorekeeper. It tallies every step I take and measures the distance covered while tracking my heart rate. At 10,000 steps a day, I’m hitting the fitness goal suggested by the American Heart Association—for someone with two God-given legs. And I’m doing it on an above-the-knee prosthetic leg, which takes far more strength and stamina than walking the old-fashioned way. It’s a process of constant self-discovery… this new version of me.

I’m not sure how many steps that is for Tuesday, whose stride is considerably shorter than mine. Has anyone invented a Dogbit yet?

Of course, next week or next month, we will need to find a more challenging goal. Pushing myself with Tuesday’s encouragement—that’s the only way I’ll ever get fully proficient on this amazing bionic leg. As Triathlon Tom told me soon after we met at the VA clinic in Denver, “You have to walk the leg. It won’t walk you.”

I am still determined to engage in athletic pursuits with Tuesday. I haven’t stopped smiling at the thrill he got from our wheelchair mini-Olympics in El Paso. I’m sure he’d love bicycle and kayak racing even more. I’m not there yet. But don’t worry, Toopy, I will be. I promise.

I’m a little more sober now about the challenges faced by all amputees, especially those who’ve lost a leg (or two). But not for a second am I sorry that Dr. Jones laid out the option for me. I made the decision—yes, the shocking decision—and Dr. O’Shaughnessy went to work. Now, even my parents understand what got me there. I am so happy we feel like a family again. While my mobility will be a work in progress for some time, at least the trajectory is ever upward, which is infinitely superior to a slow, glum slide of feeling worse each passing year. I had to make a change. I had to act. I had to take a risk. To thrive, not just survive! For me, being confined to a wheelchair—even a racing model, even temporarily—was like rolling straight to the netherworld. The trip was just as harsh as the destination.

Tuesday’s doing just great. He remains the light of my life and omnipresent companion, my dependable service dog and best-est of friends. As I told those veterinarians in Tampa, he isn’t like a member of the family. He is a member of the family—the most important and certainly most-loved one.

Like all of us, he continues to age. He is still quite fit and energetic. He hasn’t lost a speck of his boyish magnetism or an ounce of his irresistible charm. I swear it isn’t only because of his thick blond mane. He’s a good soul and an optimistic one, always up for whatever comes our way. I know he will make a world-class role model and a master-level teacher to Promise, as Lu does her thing and the new puppy finally comes to live with us. Tuesday and I are still discussing our successor strategies, how we will show the newbie that we love her, how we will teach important lessons to her, how we will make her a full-fledged member of our currently all-male pack. At the same time, we are sketching out the perfect next chapter for Tuesday. Will he become more of a therapy dog? More of an international goodwill ambassador? You just know that someone will want to make a movie of his life! I know this much for certain: We will be advocating, educating, event-hosting, book-signing, and spreading furry love from city to city and town to town.

So who is Promise?

Lu has a particular puppy in mind, a golden-haired girl who displays the earliest makings of a first-in-class working dog. I’m not sure which of Daisy’s offspring she is eyeing. But I know that Lu will find the perfect match for me and bring me fully into the process whenever the time is right.

Until Tuesday opens with a short poem I wrote.

“Split in Half”

I happened upon a tree struck by lightning;

the aftermath of a wild and violent thing.

A tree split in half.

How do we come upon such things?

What happened here?

I have seen men and women split in half.

I’ve split people in half.

I am split in half.

Are two halves really a whole?

There are holes.

Deep and lonely holes,

split in half.

A tree with holes.

The poem is a soldier’s eye view of PTSD, and it sprung from the disconnection in my life I felt after war. My time in uniform truly did split me in half, creating damage I never believed could be repaired. Then, like manna from heaven, Tuesday arrived and my wounds began to heal. Oh, there’s still a lot of scar tissue. But scar tissue is easier to live with than festering holes, and scar tissue often grows back even stronger and more resilient than untouched skin.

To this day, I can still relate to the words in that poem. They speak of a widespread condition. But they no longer define me. My outlook is far brighter now and far more outward-looking. My life is more productive too. Tuesday gets much of the credit for this blessed transition, and I get some too. As a human being, I am so much closer to whole.

The quest for wholeness is crucial to the human condition. Indeed, it’s central to the mission Tuesday and I are on. Our mission is not just for the benefit of disabled people or sufferers of PTSD. It is for everyone in hope and in need. Over the past decade, I have experienced two versions of this healing journey, one for my mind and one for my body. I would hate to say which was more daunting or which will be more difficult for others who struggle. But here is a lesson I have learned: When the mind is healthy, you are at last prepared to confront the challenges of the body. But the real triumph occurs in healing them both. In so doing, the spirit is restored.

With the help of Tuesday and many wonderful people and organizations, I see healing everywhere we travel and in the beautiful correspondence we receive every day. People are healing in much the same way I learned to walk again, step by step by step, until they have achieved greater wholeness.

Tuesday and I will continue to travel. I’ll keep telling him, “Say hi, Tuesday,” and he’ll keep sidling over to thousands of people a year. I have no doubt he’ll keep lifting the spirits of every one of them. Our advocacy—for ourselves and for others—will not end. Through these efforts, we will do all we can to help create better families, better communities, a better nation, and a better world. Isn’t that what leadership is all about? The U.S. Army defines leadership as “providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.” I have never heard a better one or a more telling touchstone to live up to.

I’d like to think I keep making progress. I have learned to be more thoughtful in how I expend my energy. Every night, I remember to leave my leg by the bed along with accessories needed to don and doff it efficiently. I try to bring more balance into my life. All of us have so much to juggle daily: work, family, friends, health, spirituality, and also the struggle, turmoil, and conflict of the world around us. Is it any wonder that we rarely find the time to focus on ourselves? I take comfort in knowing that while life ahead is certain to include madness and melancholy, it, too, will include beauty, splendor, and peace. With love in our hearts, faith is fortified.

Tuesday continually teaches me. Appropriately, we pass it on and pay it forward.

Tuesday and I will keep traveling as long as the two of us can. Lovingly, we will introduce Promise into the equation and—who knows?—there may be others over time. We are constantly seeking allies, human and canine. But as long as a veteran is suffering, as long as a disabled person is being shunted aside, as long as mental health is an elusive condition, as long as the love of a canine can make a difference to someone, we will have places to go and people to visit and work to do. Together with the many people we’ve met already who share our determination and the new friends made along the way, we will continue to march ahead.

This is what dogs and people together are capable of. We have been each other’s friends since prehistoric times. I am certain we will always remain so. Countless humans and canines have shared this special bond together. Our relationship will evolve. It will continue.

Together, we will never forget what we learned at the start: There is no hole so deep, no challenge so large, no dream so far away that things can’t be improved by an outstretched paw, a burst of warm doggie breath, and the gentle smoosh of a soft, wet nose.

Go say “hi,” Tuesday. Go say “hi.”