Bravery of Curtis Sutton

When Life Pushes

I remember the first time I saw Curtis Sutton. It was long ago, but the image has stuck with me for more than forty years. We were both young then. Yet, he wasn’t just young, he was also brave.

He started a family at a young age, when others his age were more likely to be labeled and identified as overly selfish, focusing on only themselves. He knew it would be the beginning of something harder than he’d ever faced before. Still, he proceeded to follow his heart and focus on love. That love stayed at the very center of everything he did in life. It set the stage for all that would follow.

Not many years after starting his family he was involved in a horrible traffic accident. The effect of that accident left him in constant, unrelenting pain. Yet, he persisted in his unyielding efforts to provide for and preserve his family against all odds.

I don’t think he was a believer in the odds. Because when others would have given up he continued forward. Even when things became harder and much was going wrong, I watched as he recommitted to his soul-mate Janae so they could continue their journey together for the remainder of his life. That same commitment to another opened the door for him to follow his heart again.

It was at, or near that moment when he made the decision to broaden the size and capacity of his heart. His heart was already so big in giving, that I wouldn’t have thought increasing its size would be possible. He showed that it was.

He worked with people who had lost everything as a result of addiction and worked tirelessly to give them counsel and hope, when almost everyone else in the world had given up on them. He would never give up in his own life and not in the lives of the others he served.

Tom Ferry, a personal coach, recently commented, “There are two moments in our lives that transform our potential. The first is when we’re very young and we take on either a fixed or a growth mindset. The second is when life pushes us to choose for ourselves.”

Then Tom asked, “Has that moment already happened to you?”

Curtis answered that question over and over again, after multiple, possibly crushing life events. His answer was, I choose who I want to be and what I want to do with my life. I choose love and caring. And, he always did, even when bone cancer replaced all of the bones in his body with its counterfeiting, excruciating theft of his life.

I remember the first time I saw Curtis Sutton living and choosing for himself. It was long ago, but the image has stuck with me for more than forty years. We were both young then. Yet, he was young as well as the brave one. And, now? Just yesterday, he chose who he was going to be, as the last of his life was being stolen.

There are two moments in our lives that transform our potential. Curtis always chose the path of love. He chose who he was going to be, when offered joy and when offered extreme pain. 

He was brave and good, when life pushed.