After enduring an extremely exhausting and uphill battle for roughly the past two years of his life, my Uncle quietly succumbed to the war that was waged against him at the side of his loving wife and two beautiful daughters… I don’t think he would have wanted it any other way.

A lot of the time we don’t realize how truly special someone is until they are no longer with us. This was never the case with my Uncle Phil… We all knew how hard he worked, how much he had sacrificed, and how much he loved his friends and family.

He is deeply missed.

As my brothers and I escorted our Uncles casket out of the funeral home a song echoed throughout the chapel. It was ‘on the road again’ by Willie Nelson…. For one reason or another I couldn’t help but listen to the words of this song.

With Bubs behind the wheel I had the opportunity to reflect on the time I got to spend with my Uncle, the lives he had touched, and my own existence on our way home.

On my 17^th birthday I got a telephone call from Uncle Phil. He wished me a happy birthday and asked me if I had gotten the card he and my Aunt had sent me. We joked around for a little bit and then he told me that he had something very serious to tell me… I’ll never forget what he said…

‘Ian… you’ve got twelve months to raise as much hell as you possibly can and not go to jail for it, get it all out of your system now. Steal something, get in a fight, and never look back’

Wise words from a wise man.

Then I got to thinking….

Although I have always been somewhat popular and well liked by my peers, I have never really felt that I belonged anywhere.

I come from a loving and supportive family, yet feel alienated from them. I’ve lived with some of the greatest friends known to man, yet have lost contact with the majority of them. I have felt loves like no other and sabotaged them all.

I have slowly removed myself from contact with others. I have gone from working at summer camps and retail stores to warehouses, truck driving, and ‘ultimate fighting’… possibly one of the loneliest professions in the world.  

Having said that… there is a tortuous beauty that can only be found by being part of the crowd yet isolated from it all at the same time, by being so close to thousands of screaming fans yet so far away from their roars. 

I miss the damp walls of the change rooms backstage, the cool breeze that dominates the hallways beneath the raging fans above. I miss the hot lights, the music, the cameras, the wins and the losses. I miss my friend Evan, I miss my Uncle Phil… I miss the beauty of it all.

I need to find help; I need to get healthy… I need to get back in the cage before I get lost in the crowd.