A good friend of mine, Matt Olson, who also runs a TRAIN HARD Men's Club in Southern California, is hosting his annual fundraiser tomorrow to support pediatric cancer. We met through mutual friends and an organization called NEGU.
With his event coming up, it got me thinking back to our experience when Ava had leukemia and one piece of advice that I haven't shared in this newsletter for a while.
It was probably around 2:00 in the morning. We were in the hospital, and we still hadn't gotten the news that Ava had leukemia, but we knew something wasn't right.
A nurse came over to Ashley and me and said something I'll never forget.
She told us she had seen a lot of families go through what we were about to go through, and the biggest thing she had seen that helped keep a family together was making time for date nights. She encouraged us to prioritize our relationship through whatever was ahead and to get out together once a week.
I'll be honest, in that moment I didn't want to hear it.
We still didn't know what was wrong with our daughter, and talking about date nights felt completely out of place. Looking back, though, that nurse knew exactly what we were walking into. She wasn't talking about that night. She was trying to prepare us for the next few years.
For the next three years we spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. It was exhausting. There were plenty of reasons to put our relationship on the back burner, but we kept coming back to what that nurse told us.
It wasn't always easy, and we certainly weren't perfect about it, but we made it a priority.
At the time, the advice almost seemed too simple to matter. Looking back now, I think it was one of the most important things we did. It helped us stay connected, present a strong front for our family, and come out the other side stronger than we went in.
It made me think about how easy it is to put your marriage on hold because life is busy. Kids need rides. Work gets demanding. There always seems to be something more urgent.
But one day the kids will be grown and out of the house, and it'll be just you and your spouse again.
The relationship you have then is being built by the choices you make now.
If it's been a while since you've had a night together, maybe this is your reminder to put something on the calendar. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to happen.
Life gets busy. It's not always easy. But making your relationship a priority has been one of the best decisions Ashley and I have made.
Keep training hard.
Jason Khalipa
