Jet Fuel

I’ve written about a weekly fitness class I teach, Functional Boxing, at a neighborhood seniors center. I feel privileged to have students return week after week to perfect their jab, cross, and hook strikes and have fun while improving balance and coordination.

One of my regulars, Lydia, hadn’t made it for a couple of weeks. Moments after starting class, I was happy to see her walk in. I noticed when we took breaks between each set of punch combos, she wrote in a notebook, which made me curious.

At the end of class, the students were chatting, and I overheard Lydia saying she’d been gone because her apartment building had burned down in the recent wildfires. Finding a new place and getting herself and her pets settled had been difficult, to say the least.

I approached her to tell her how sorry I was and how I appreciated her making it to class while dealing with her challenges. “Oh, Tom, you have no idea how much you’ve helped me,” she said. Lydia explained that with her life turned upside down, the boxing techniques she’s learned have brought her some normalcy. “I have a full-length mirror in my new place and when I practice our punches in front of it, my brain starts to feel right and I’m less anxious. It feels like things will be okay.” She said the notes she’d been taking were the different combinations we’d done and she planned to work on them daily. “You’re helping to save my life, Tom.”

Deeply moved, I thanked Lydia and told her this was one of the most powerful things I’d ever been told about my work.

Leaving the seniors center, I felt blessed and uplifted from having received this gift. To serve as jet fuel for my soul and my spirit of gratitude, I pledge to hold Lydia’s words, “You’re helping to save my life, Tom,” in my mind and heart each day.