So as mentioned I am starting this new chapter in my mission to support, encourage and help young people by adding YOUR STORIES to MINE…  So really this is all about OUR STORIES from now on.

I read thousands of emails a year from young people.  Some make me smile, some break my heart, many inspire me so much.  All are worth my time reading and also my time responding. 

After all that I have experienced in my touring in 2011 I really saw a need to get more uplifting, positive stories out to any and as many who will take the time to read.

These stories are real life stories written and sent to me by young people I have encountered in my travels.  I hope these stories of strength, perserverance, and will to move forward will inspire, empower and motivate many others to NEVER GIVE UP and FIND YOUR WAY…

This following story brought me to tears and inspired me so much!  We all lose people.  But we can move forward after this loss and do so with positive insight, a positive attitude and a positive new outlook on life…

Hey Kevin! My name is Megan and earlier today you started off my lazy Monday morning at Highland Secondary by sharing your devastating story.
Although my story is not anywhere near similar to yours, I just wanted to share a bit of it with you..

I’m currently 18 years old in my grade 12 school year, I have two siblings (a brother and sister) and a mom. Two and a half years ago when I was 15, my sister was over in Saskatchewan while my mom, dad, brother and I were all living in Comox, BC. On a Sunday morning I rolled over in bed, looked at my clock, it was 9:33am and I remembered my family wasn’t going to church so I rolled back over to go to sleep. But as I closed my eyes I hear my mom down the hall in the living room on the phone say “I think my husbands had a heart attack”. I rip my blankets off and hurry to the living room where my dad is lying on the couch, white as a ghost, like he was frozen still. My mom and brother take him off the couch as the 911 operator tells them to. But he’s dead weight - that was our first clue. I know he’s dead, but I wouldn’t lose hope till I know for sure. It felt like forever waiting for the paramedics to get to my house as my mom and brother tried giving my dad CPR. Our second clue was watching my mom breathe into his lungs and hear it whistle out again like his lungs weren’t inflating. As they press down on his chest, we hear his ribs making cracking noises. To this day I will never forget the sound. My mom also gags as she breathes into his mouth because the stale food in his body has been sitting for hours. I sat holding his cold white hand, sobbing, feeling extremely helpless. As the ambulance arrives we are all escorted into my moms room as they try to save my dads life. But as I already thought from the moment I saw his face, it was too late. He was gone. He had a heart attack around 1 or 2am. I remember being in my parents room and crying so hard. It was October 26th 2008. I was two months into my first year of high school and my dad was dead. I was my dads little girl. I wasn’t ready. My last words to him were “good night” … little did I know that really meant “good bye”.

This experience has completely changed my life - obviously. What have I learned? You never know what you might wake up to, so don’t go to bed angry. Use your last words to someone wisely. Always, always, always, hug and tell your parents you love them. You’ll never fully understand why, or why now. Your life is what you make it. Your faith will help you through. And so many more valuable lessons. But a main one being, your life is what you make it. This applies to both my dad and myself. He had hopes and dreams in life that he never acted on, and for that he never saw them through. He lost his chance. For me, this was a HUUUGGGEE wake up call. No more sitting around and dreaming about what I want to do, instead - DO IT!

I also learned that just because he’s gone, doesn’t mean I have to stop. I couldn’t let losing my dad, mean losing a part of me. If anything, I now have the chance to keep a part of him alive. My choices could be in honor of him. He made choices to not take care of his health, and he lost his life sooner than he should’ve because of it. And he lost the chance to see his children grow up to become adults. That makes me sad. And admittedly, I will sometimes cry and get angry because of that. But I recognize that’s not about me, it’s about him and his lifestyle. And at 15, I realized my life is about me and my choices fashion that.

The reason I share this with you is because while you spoke to the grade 12’s at my school, you explained you wanted to empower and inspire us. I, too, want to do the same for others. Although it’s sometimes painful at first, I have told my story (one-on-one) to a couple kids my own age and a little younger, and after sharing the hardest part, I try to give them a small smile and show the happiness I still have in my life. Regardless what I’ve been through. I tell them it’s hard losing a parent, especially as a kid, and there’s no covering up the hurt and emotions tied together with it. There’s no sugar-coating it. But it’s not the end. It sucks. But life’s not over.

I admire that you can put yourself in front of countless teenagers and tell your story, re-living it over and over. I’ve learned it gets easier to re-tell my own story as time goes on, but I know it doesn’t take away from the distinct pictures, smells, and sounds in my head. You are a really strong and cool guy with such a big heart. I look up to that.

Lyrics from a song I like to live by, “fear is an anchor, time is a stranger, love isn’t borrowed, we aren’t promised tomorrow”.

Thanks Kevin for surviving and living life to help others. You clearly survived for a reason!

Megan

I share Megan’s outlook on life and death.  I believe her story and insight can help others dealing with this unfortunate but unavoidable fact of life…

Please post your thoughts, your feelings, your stories…

Thanks Megan for your courage, your strength and your story!

Kevin

So it’s been ages since I’ve written a blog…  I’ve written a blurb.  I’ve written a rant.  But no epic blogs in a long time.

Well life has been nothing short of epic for me in these past three months.  That’s for sure.  I spent almost all of February in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  The Canadian Prairies in the middle of winter – the coldest month of the year I learned.  This was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and I have an even deeper respect for my prairie friends from the experience.  The first day I arrived in Saskatchewan it was -37C with the wind-chill!!!

The SaskTel / SGI sponsored tour of Saskatchewan was awesome, as all of my trips in the past to Saskatchewan consistently have been.  Great people, great adventures and great memories! After two weeks in sub-zero Saskatchewan I came home just briefly only to bounce to Seattle for the weekend with my buddy Nick to see Social Distortion Friday night and Guttermouth Saturday night. 

The punk rock weekend was a bit disappointing and probably my last concert trip to Seattle.  It seems the city of Starbucks, Microsoft and Grunge is also host to an abundance of Nazi bouncers at shows.  Their attitudes suck, and each time my friends and I go to shows in Seattle someone is removed from the show.  Friday night’s show it was me being turfed…  I was removed from the show because I was sitting in an area where I was considered a “fire hazard.”  No matter how many times I explained to the dick bouncer “my wheelchair is metal and metal does not catch fire and I have no intentions of spontaneously combusting!!” he insisted I move from the only elevated spot where I could see the show: the show I paid $50 to see; the show I drove two and half hours to get to; the show I paid $100 for a hotel room for.  Not wanting to conform or comply to such a Dicktatorship I declined to move whereupon 5 bouncers lifted me up in my wheelchair and removed me from the premise.  Please send your fan mail here SHOWBOX Seattle

Fortunately, after a less than awesome road trip to Seattle the following trip to Winnipeg for the MPI Friends for Life Speaker Series proved to be the opposite of Sucky in Seattle.  Prior to leaving for Friendly Manitoba, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I had never been there besides a quick layover in the Winnipeg airport years ago.  Based on my only experience I didn’t expect a whole lot I guess…  So shoot low because you can only reach higher maybe is a lesson here HAHA…  Sounds like a Homer Simpson pep-talk…  Simpsons reference aside, my expectations of Winnipeg were absolutely and completely exceeded.  This was one of my best tours ever!  I met great people; started video blogging; stayed in a baller hotel The Inn at the Forks *met awesome people here too*; ate delicious food; saw Streetlight Manifesto; attended a Manitoba Moose game from a private box; and had some of the sweetest presentations I have consistently had on memory.  And everyone from MPI treated me like gold.  Everyone from MPI is GOLD in my books!!  This was the way a tour should go.  From start to finish it was amazing.  I left Winnipeg feeling proud and happy.  I left Winnipeg reluctantly, but I think I am going back.  So I am stoked on that!

I came home from the Canadian Prairies just in time for my birthday, March 1st.  It was awesome to see all my friends and family and even better to show off the moustache (or MUTTstache as I called it) I had been farming since the end of January.  My MUTTstache made the late Michael Jackson seem less creepy.  Seriously…  It was bad.  It made Terry and Deaner from FUBAR look like Calvin Klein models.  I looked like a dirtbag, and for that I couldn’t have been more entertained and oddly proud.  Check it. Every morning I would wake up and look at myself in the mirror and just laugh off my ass at my ‘stache.  My birthday dinner at mom’s was when the rest of the fam’ got to see the hair farm I had growing on my lip.  It got some comments and laughs from my family for sure.  But I think my best buddies who came by appreciated the chinchilla that had died on my upper lip more than anyone else.

On this brief stop at home, I had just one local talk before getting on an airplane to make a dream come true…  Since I first started travelling and sharing Our Story I have said “imagine if one day I could speak in California!!”  Well on March 2^nd, 2011 this dream came true.  I flew to Los Angeles feeling a little under the weather.  Of course I was excited to go to California.  I was just feeling haggard from dinner and festivities with my dad the night before on my actual birthday.  Draw your own conclusions.  This was not my favourite commute of all time, but who cares… I was Southern California bound!!

Waking up to sunshine and palm trees in Southern California was amazing!  Like I said…  A dream come true!  Even better…  My talks at Pacifica and Camarillo High Schools went as awesome as I could have ever hoped!  I am pretty confident I left a positive mark on some Southern Californians, and for that I am double stoked because 1) It is always my intention to make a difference when I speak 2) Because I REALLY WANT TO GO BACK TO SoCAL and speak again!!! 

Something that I will always remember from this trip is how following my talk at Pacifica High School about 50 students met in the evening for an impromptu pizza dinner.  When I entered the back room at the pizza parlour all of these students clapped their hands and cheered.  It was amazing to be so appreciated by these people I had only just met earlier that day.  Another memory I will always have from this trip is taking my wheelchair to a skatepark in Oxnard, California.  Going to a Cali skatepark has also been a dream of mine for many, many years.  Well ok… The dream actually was at first to skateboard in a park in California…  But a wheelchair in a skatepark is better than no skatepark at all.  This was an EPIC trip for sure.  I saw family friends, met great people at each school I spoke at and even made a little detour to Huntington Beach for a night before I flew home because…  Well…  Because I could!  I LOVE CALIFORNIA!!  … And In N Out Burger, which I ate my fair share of during this visit, including one last run before flying home Sunday night.

I got home from LA pretty late that Sunday night and maybe slept three or four hours in my bed at home.  I was up early again for a double-header ICBC speaking day… at least within my own area code for a change.  I spoke six times in three days.  It was awesome to be home.  I really felt like I had something new and great to give to these local schools.  To me it seemed my presentation had really evolved and improved from all of the recent travel.  The response from everyone attending was great!  A cool moment in this brief stop home, I spoke at the first school I ever spoke at 9 years ago, Mission Secondary.  This was a special event and a slightly emotional one as I could not help but reflect on the journey from that landmark day until now.  I’ll admit it; during my slideshow, I got a little crimson eyed. 

But before I could sit back (insert wheelchair joke) and reflect too much, I was back at the Vancouver airport.  This time, I was flying north to Terrace, British Columbia for an ICBC Trade Off presentation with my buddy Metal Dave at Northwest Community College.  Two things I will never forget happened as I waited in Vancouver airport for a flight.  1)  I got a frantic call from my sister Allison that our aunt Cathy had had a stroke and it didn’t look good.  THANK GOD Cathy is healthy and a fighter because she lived and suffered no side effects from the incident.  2)  I met a fifteen year old paralyzed girl in a wheelchair and her mom and sister.  I learned that this family had been hit by a drunk driver recently.  This news hit me so hard.  Hayley is 15.  I couldn’t help but think if someone paralyzed my sister driving drunk…  I would…  They weren’t good thoughts.  Let’s just say that…  Hypocrisy aside, this made me think of the strength and support of Brendon’s parents.  I mean he isn’t even alive and they supported and forgave me.  They gave me a chance for a life, and if they hadn’t been the incredibly strong people they are surely none of this would have ever happened.  None of these words you are reading would have been written without Bren’s family’s support that led me on this path.  I speak about this in my presentation now and feel it is a very powerful testament to the Beuk family’s role in my life turning becoming what it has.  A 15 year old girl in a wheelchair is also a sad reminder that innocent people are still being affected by impaired driving.

Terrace was all goods.  Metal Dave and I made a great team like Joey DiMiao and Carl Logan from Metal Dave’s favourite band MANOWAR.  From Terrace, I flew to Vegas to meet my friends and well…  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  Ok… I will make one Vegas confession…  Mom don’t read this…  I ate 3 Double-Double burgers from In N Out.  Sorry the rest stays in Vegas…  From Vegas we flew to Cleveland to see MANOWAR.  And well what happens at MANOWAR can be seen right here.  This was the best concert I have ever been too and probably the most epic weekend I have ever had with buddies.  It is one we will certainly not soon forget… or remember… depending on who you talk to.

I parted ways with my friends in Cleveland, flying east to Boston, Massachusetts.  This was my first time ever in MA, and I was pretty stoked to see the Spirit of America.  In the beginning Massachusets just seemed like any other place I have been…  airport, roads, hotel…  I did some laundry and went to a skateshop during the daylight hours Tuesday then spoke in Wilmington, MA at a parent’s night in the evening.  My good friend and partner in The Drive to Save Lives Cara Filler MC’d the event and introduced me.  This was super cool!  The event was pretty rad actually!  I wasn’t so sure as I gave my presentation how the 1500 teens and parents were reacting, but their thunderous standing ovation preceding my video definitely gave me a few hints! SO SICK!  SO STOKED!!  I am still getting positive feedback from this talk and truly hope I will be back in MA speaking again soon.  I met great people during this brief trip that will certainly be a part of my life and story for years to come… Deb & Eli to name a couple.

Wednesday morning I was on the move again…  I drove North West from Massachusetts to Vermont to begin a week and a half long speaking tour largely supported by SADD Vermont and VTLSP.  OK…  I don’t even know where to begin here.  There is something about Vermont.  My presentations are just received in a way that they are not received anywhere else.  In 10 days I got over 600 emails and got a standing ovation almost every time I spoke.  This trip without a doubt changed my understanding of young people of today and the many, many struggles and challenges they face.  This trip changed my life, my presentation, and my direction of where to go next.  What hit me probably hardest from this latest trip to Vermont is the number of emails I read that either had the words depression, cutting or suicide in them; and furthermore the disproportion of females to males writing these emails.  I realized there is a need for support for all of these girls struggling and this is something I am working on currently when not writing this blog, speaking, or travelling / commuting.  I want to see girls supporting girls on a local, state / provincial and national level.  If you are interested please message me.

Oh Vermont…  I read emails I will never ever forget on this trip.  One especially has significantly changed my presentation and the course of where Our Story is going forever.  A brave young girl wrote me that beneath the happy persona she wears to school each day lays a dark secret she has shared with nobody.  In fact there are many secret scars on this girl’s body from a bad habit she has been struggling with.  For the past three years this girl has gone home from school, taken a razor blade from her drawer and cut herself.  Well after my talk at her school, this amazing young girl went home, sat on her bed, wiggled her toes and thought about things a little differently.  She took out her razorblade and instead of mutilating herself she threw it away.  Immediately following, she wrote me and shared the story.  Well I am happy to say that this girl and I have been in steady contact and she is well aware that her story has now become a part of my story.  This story changed Our Story forever!!

I had an epiphany in Vermont…  I realized, and have further been reminded by hundreds of other emails I have read since, that there are so many inspiring, brave young people out there with stories that can help and change other young people’s lives.  Let’s all support each other.  Maybe Our Story can be the catalyst for this motivation.  Timing is everything, and at a time when I have begun to realize there is likely soon going to be no way I can possibly keep up this pace and follow up with everyone and everything that I encounter, I realized that I don’t have to do it all alone.  I need to build a team of young people to all work together to get OUR STORIES out to young people all over the world.  Together we can change the world and change and save lives.  Right now, all I can say is this epiphany is still in its early stages of being transformed into an action plan.  But it is in definitely the works.  Mark my words here because I intend to be clairvoyant at this moment and come back one day to these very words…  Even though I don’t know exactly where this is all going I do know without a doubt that this is the beginning to something bigger than anything I have ever done before, or anything I ever expected to come from speaking to youth.  This is the prelude to the next chapter.  So with that said…  I am building a team and if you are inspired by this in any way I WANT YOU ON BOARD!  Let’s change the world with Our Stories.  You are all officially welcomed to officially become a part of OUR STORY. 

Now you may understand why no epic blogs for a while.  So much has been going on…  and more great memories were just around the corner…

After my first successful week of touring in Vermont, I drove back through New Hampshire to Boston, MA.  It was on this beautiful sunny Friday afternoon that I caught my first glimpse of the real Boston: old Boston Garden; the Freedom Trail; Cambridge to name just a few of the sights that caught my attention and inspired a greater appreciation for this historical New England city.  My love affair with Boston had begun, and I was anxiously about to introduce two very important people in my life to my new mistress too!  My mom and Hayley were to arrive at Boston / Logan Airport on this unseasonably warm New England early-spring evening. YEP!  Half the fam was arriving in Bean Town! 

Mom, Hayley and I had an awesome weekend in and around Boston.  Words may not justify, so to save myself even attempting to portray this great experience with another paragraph or two I will just post this link because I think this video sums it all up pretty nicely!  BOSTON IS SO RAD!  And I love my mom and Hayley!  Allison and Dad too.  We have trips coming up soon as well!!  Red Sox vs Yankees in August!!  STOKED!!!

Additional to all of the other realizations these last months have taught me that I have wrote about, I have learned to understand more than ever that life is short and the people we care for are such a gift.  Go out and LIVE, LIVE, LIVE and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE because tomorrow is not a guarantee for any of us!!

Concluding our Boston weekend, I parted ways with mom and Hayley on Sunday, March 20^th by making my way back to Vermont.  I had yet another busy week of speaking ahead… Yet another EPIC week of speaking ahead!!  Each Vermont presentation got responses from students and staff alike that absolutely blew my mind and inspired me to the point of wearing a perma’ grin.  After two days of touring solo in Vermont, I picked my mom and Hayley up at the Burlington Airport on the Tuesday.  We did some sightseeing around Burlington before retreating to our place in Bolton Valley where we were staying. 

And then again there were three…  My first ever speaking tour with family onboard began early Wednesday morning with a commute along windy snowy Vermont roads.  I drove the three musketeers over an hour to Hazen High School where 900 students from 9 area schools had all came together to hear my talk.  This was a pretty emotional talk having mom and Hayley in the crowd, but I got through without completely breaking down.  My efforts were rewarded kindly with a knarly nine-hundred person standing ovation.  This was another awesome day, and a great opportunity for my family to see what I am doing not only close to home but also across the continent.  They also got to meet some great friends in Lyndsay and Shelby from VTLSP, as well as Celia and Mack.  Unfortunately, Jordan, Lindsey and Max were unable to meet the fam’ this time around, but that doesn’t mean they won’t someday.  Seriously…  I could name drop for days here, but these seven people really have to be mentioned because I would not know Vermont if it weren’t for these seven awesome people! Danika too and so many more whose names escape me.  THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!

I would speak 4 more times, ski Vermont and eat at least one epic meal in the next couple of days.  Vermont was good to me and my family.  We all left with great memories and gifts and a greater love and appreciation for life and each other.  I should also take this opportunity to thank Vermont Adaptive Ski Program and Maggie for comping all of our lift tickets and equipment rentals.  This was so appreciated.  What a day of skiing it was…  My first time going with no tethers.  You can watch here.

None of us wanted to leave New England, but the time had come to head west.  It was a long trip back – over 12 hours – and I spent almost every single minute responding to emails from students.  I have never written so much in my life.  In hindsight it was pretty crazy, but I felt I had no option if I were going to keep my promise I have made to young people to respond to everyone who wrote me.

I was home two nights before leaving again for another speaking trip.  This trip would take me way north to Wrangell, Alaska.  This was my third trip to Alaska this school year, and yet another reminder of the progression of my presentation.  When I first started speaking, the biggest focus of my presentation was traffic safety.  But over the years, it has evolved into a primarily never give up / suicide prevention talk.  This seems to be a larger issue with youth, and where the majority of my emails I get are most directly related.  Well Wrangell, has surely been impacted by suicide recently having tragically lost a beautiful and incredibly sweet young girl.  I felt the pain of this community and so hope that I left hope and inspiration to get through the tough days many are currently facing in the wake of this tragedy.  As sad as parts of this trip were, there were also very positive and inspiring experiences with the youth that I spent the majority of my time with… whether it was speaking at the high school, my impromptu appearance at a support group for adolescent girls at the elementary school, chilling informally at the Boys and Girls Club, being on the radio or just running into people while rolling around town with Annya.  I met a lot of amazing people in Wrangell, Alaska further warming my heart to this arctic gem of the north.

Now of all my current travels this next bit was probably the knarliest…

I flew back home, from Wrangell AK via Seattle WA, landing in Vancouver around 12:30am Thursday morning.  I made sure I only had carryon luggage (no cologne, shaving cream, toothpaste – AWESOME!) so I could get through customs as quickly as possible.  I stayed in the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel, hitting the sheets just after 1am only to wake up at 3am to begin the next leg of my touring schedule.  I was onboard a ferry from Tswassen to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island at 5:15am where I had told myself I would sleep…  But instead I found myself responding to emails (while racking my brain for where the nearest drive-thru Starbucks was in order to survive the day ahead).

I started my ICBC Vancouver Island Road Safety Speaker Tour for 2011 at Wellington Secondary School in Nanaimo, BC.  It felt so great to be back home in BC and on Vancouver Island!  Going into this talk I just felt like my world and understanding of life had been so expanded and enlightened.  I felt and still feel like even though I have been to these schools up to four times in recent years I am coming in with an almost entirely new presentation.  The words may be the same in parts, but the messages and impacts are something different… something bigger.

I have been touring Vancouver Island for three weeks now and have been getting stellar responses from every school I have been to.  The emails have kept up in pace and inspiration from students.  I have also read many a sad story that further enforces my goal to take things to a new level to support these young people in need.  I have been blessed to see my great friends from ICBC (Caroline and Colleen) and to be able to see my family (Uncle Keith, Aunt Cathy, Jeremy), familiar friends at favourite hotels Laurel Point and The Coast Bastion who treat me like royalty and to visit schools that are so grateful for my visits.  It is this appreciation and enthusiasm from you all that keeps me going strong through this epic road trip I have been on.  No matter how little sleep, how sore my throat is, how exhausted I feel, or whether I wake up in a panic because I have no idea where I am or what time zone I am in I AM INSPIRED MORE THAN EVER TO SHARE OUR STORY AND MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE because of YOU!!

As I said before I could name drop everyone, but I feel confident that you all know who you are. Thanks for the inspiration.  Our Story is changing lives and saving lives and making this world a better place.  I have realized that even though we first meet by me sharing / you hearing my story, we all have a story.  What happens from the moment we meet and here on is OUR STORY!  Let’s make it a great one!  Let’s change the world for the better.

I will be posting some of your stories in this blog from now on.  I think we can all learn from each other and support each other.  If you have a story you want to post that you feel could positively impact others please send it to me.  You can list your name and school and age if you want or just some of this info or just remain totally anonymous.  That is up to you.  I already have the first story ready to copy and paste…  Expect to see it in a few days after people have a chance to read this blog…  I know some of you have been waiting for one.

ENJOY!!

Kevin