"Dead in my Tracks"

  How a tremendous tragedy and grief changed my life and stopped me "dead in my tracks"
My late husband Kenny was always such a huge part of my fitness life. He was the very reason I got a chance to be on the cover and in the pages of Muscle Magazine ~ My brother Dana was also there day in and day out training with me, giving me the drive to train hard, to never say "I can't" and to always believe in myself. My late husband was also there day in and day out. He gave me the love and support in every way to follow my fitness dreams. He believed in me even when I didn't always believe in myself. My husband would always be amazed and sometimes a little jealous how I always managed to fit my training in my day. No matter what came up during a specific day to make it tougher on me to fit my weight training in. I would always find a way. Even with two young children and two jobs and one job being our own business. Then taking care of my husband and our home never stopped me from doing my training. He once said to me... I don't think there is anything in this world that could or will stop you from training! I agreed with him. Training was very important to me and training once saved my life and I wasn't about to go back to that place. I continued to train and love every single day of it.

My husband will never know it or maybe he does now. There was something far greater than my will or my fight to keep training day in and day out. This  something was a great tragedy and it did stop me, it stopped me "dead in my tracks" It was the senseless murder of my beloved husband Kenny.

 A month prior to this tragedy we were in Las Vegas for my calender shoot with Bob Kennedy from Muscle Magazine. I brought our two children with us and we made it a family vacation. We had not had a family vacation ever because of our business. Being invited to do this calender shoot gave me the opportunity to bring my husband and our two children with me. Bob Kennedy was kind enough to put us up in a beautiful suite at the Bellagio Hotel. It was simply amazing to have my family with me to share this experience. Being a simple girl from the Hawaiian islands now in Las Vegas shooting a Muscle Magazine Calender with Bob Kennedy as the photographer. It was the time of my life and a time I will never forget.

Too soon my life was to drastically change and there was nothing I could do about it. About a month after returning from my Las Vegas calender shoot my sweet husband was shot six times in cold blood at our place of business. That day everything changed for me, for our two children and my whole family. It was a very sad, cold day in Hawaii. A day that still burns inside of me till today.

I tried very hard to still train and keep up with my fitness lifestyle. It was important to me and I had just done so many amazing things in that year for me to let it all go. It was hard going in the gym and facing people. No one knew what to say or they would say the wrong things. Then the pity and the sad looks people would give me. I could feel it and it just hurt me too much. One day I was training and I just couldn't continue working out. I dropped the weights down and grabbed my towel, my water bottle and walked out of the gym and to my car. I looked back at the place I loved to go to so much and knew I wasn't going to return..

Sadly I found out there was one thing that could stop me from my training and from my fitness life style. This was it and it was a strong pain inside of me and I didn't care in the least about walking away. Loss and grief stopped my training and stopped my life. I was alive but dead inside. For the following years after that day leaving the gym I had to gain the strength to fight back and it was harder than I thought it would be. Little did I know then that it would take me a few years and a lot of fighting back to feel good about my life again. To feel good in my own skin again. This wasn't like fighting my eating disorder, Anorexia. That too, I  fought hard when I first began weight lifting. There was no one that could help me with this fight. I needed to face and fight it alone. I wanted my life back and I wanted some peace inside of me.

Fighting sadness and the grief was a much harder feat than anything I have faced or may face in the future. It would take everything I had and then some to fight to get myself and my life back on track again. To find the peace I was looking for so desperately.

So fight back is what I did, and I am still fighting...