Five days after the biggest moment of my professional wrestling career, I stood next to a gorgeous stream, on a beautiful sunny day, surrounded by friends and family. When “Here Comes the Bride” started playing, emotion welled up inside me. After I hadn’t seen her all day, when Bri turned the corner and slowly walked up the aisle of roses with her father, tears ran down my face. I was so happy. We vowed to love each other for the rest of our lives, a very powerful agreement, and one that neither of us takes lightly.
The rest of the night was magic, like a dream. We ate, we danced, and we laughed, surrounded by the people who had loved us throughout our lives. Before we went to bed, we consummated our marriage in rather spectacular fashion. Despite all the pomp and circumstance of WrestleMania 30, that day was the greatest day of my life.
If this were a movie, this is where the story would end. The protagonist accomplished his dream, then celebrated by marrying the love of his life. The viewer would turn off the TV feeling good, as if from then on, they lived happily ever after. But again, that would be fiction.
Bri and I left for our honeymoon in Hawaii—the first time I had ever been there—two days after our wedding. We stayed at an eco retreat and spent the week in a beautiful bamboo hut, where on one night we were able to watch a lunar eclipse directly from our bed. We woke every morning to the sun rising and went to bed shortly after it got dark. We hiked, we explored, we swam under waterfalls, and we bodysurfed in the Pacific Ocean. When we returned, I truly felt as if life had started anew, better and more vivid than it was before.
Two days later, I was in Baltimore, the city where I first won the World Heavyweight Championship. Bri and I were leisurely preparing to go to Raw, when I got a phone call. My dad had died, completely unexpected, at the age of fifty-seven. I went from an unequivocal high to an unequivocal low. If our wedding day was the best day of my life, the day my father died was the worst.
I cried and cried and cried and cried. I cry now as I write this. I did the opening segment of Raw that night, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. The next day, I flew to Washington, went to the funeral parlor, and saw my dad’s face for the very last time. I hugged him, trying to say good-bye, but nothing felt good enough.
My dad had not been able to come to our wedding. He and his wife, Darby, were going to come; however, shortly before the wedding, Darby got bad pneumonia and was hospitalized. My dad told me he wished he could come, but if anything happened to Darby while he was gone, he would never forgive himself. Not only did I understand, I knew he was doing the right thing, and I told him as much. He stayed with his wife, the woman who had stood by him for over twenty years. After the wedding, I called him and told him how well it went and how happy I was. He loved hearing about it and was happy for me. For us.
Whenever anyone has asked me if wrestling is “worth it,” meaning is the reward worth the pain, worth the travel, worth the being away from your family, I’ve always answered yes. And it always felt like it was. But I naïvely assumed that when I was done wrestling, I could always go home and make up for all the time I’ve missed with my family and friends. Now, going home isn’t the same, and there is nothing I can do to make up for all the time I’ve spent away from my father. Instead of being proud of my accomplishments, all I feel is regret about not being there for the most important people in my life, the people who have loved me in a way that had nothing to do with wrestling. If you were to ask me today if all the reward was worth the sacrifices, I would say no. Yet I keep on because I’m not quite sure what else to do with myself and because stopping now won’t give me any more time with my father.
The last time I saw my dad was Christmas of 2013. My sister came over to spend the holiday with us, along with her two daughters and her husband. My dad came over, and he was so excited that he was going to be able to play Santa for the girls. We had a nice Christmas dinner, and shortly afterward my dad went in to get dressed. We were all in the living room, where we have a sliding glass door, and all of a sudden we heard bells ringing. My oldest niece’s ears perked up, and she turned to my sister to say, “Mom, it’s Santa!” My dad came out in his Santa suit, saying, “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!” He played the part well, and his eyes were beaming as his two granddaughters came to sit on his lap. When he left, we gave each other a big hug, and he told my sister and me how happy that night had made him. I will never forget that night.
While I was at the funeral home, seeing my father for the final time, one of Darby’s daughters gave me a box my dad left for me. When I opened it, it contained a silver bracelet, presumably a gift he’d gotten me for the wedding. Inscribed on the front were my initials, and as I looked at the back of the bracelet, I started crying even harder. My dad had inscribed, “To the man that you’ve become, and the son you’ll always be.”
The last time I saw my dad, Christmas, 2013