"You Gotta Have Heart"

As his strength is stretched for the most significant test of his life and the demands that have challenged him, I think of the words to this song….”you gotta have heart, all you really need is heart”. Or maybe I should be saying, “you gotta have Rich”. For without that effervescent smile-you know the one that lights up a room that is predictable as a 5 yr. old on Christmas Day, we’d all have a lot less delight in our lives. We’d struggle with mediocrity and the undeniable fact that his life has brought a sense of fulfillment to those that know him. He’s led by his example of unequivocal love and devotion to his one true love and not just his children, but grand children, and now great grand children. There’s a manifestation about his life that one could look at as patently bland. But I’m not using bland in a monotonous, or uninspiring trait, but actually one of simplification and strength. He is not one of fanfare or tooting his own horn, unless of course he’s birdied the 15th, or sunk that 18 footer. He adores his life, his family and his God. And with that creed, all good things have come to him. You couldn’t write it much simpler than that.

I think of the words to another song that inspires me about this man;
“turn on your heartlight, let it shine wherever you go, let it make a happy glow, For all the world to see”.
And as he wheeled into the operating room tomorrow morning, I’ll not be saying just a prayer for him, but I’ll also be saying a prayer for the surgeon, that he knows what a gift he has been given today to bring not just blood flowing through this man's veins, but life as well and that God guides his hands into the very soul of this man and “turns on his heartlight, so that it will continue to shine for all the world to see”. For you see... “You Gotta Have Rich”.