Glorious Days On the Dirt Road - Paperback

It started with a lawn mower and a man on crutches.

My dad didn't ask for help. He just strapped them on and mowed the lawn anyway. Didn't say a word about it.

That image never left me.

I grew up in Pittsburgh. The neighborhood was loud and honest and it did not baby you. Which, looking back, was the best thing it could've done.

Life put me through the wringer a few times. I built things. Lost them. Built again. Then stage 4 prostate cancer showed up and I thought, okay, that's probably the final round.

Then it came back.

Then it came back again.

Three rounds. Same fight. Different days. And every single morning, without being asked, the sun came up anyway. Like it had somewhere to be and wasn't going to wait around for my diagnosis to sort itself out.

I'm not sure cancer has a sense of humor, but mornings apparently do.

Here's what those mornings taught me. Gratitude doesn't show up when things are going well. It sneaks up on you in the dark. Right when you'd least expect it. Right when you probably don't deserve it.

Most people go through the hard stuff alone. They carry disappointment around like a secret. They don't talk about what faith and family actually feel like when things fall apart.

I talked about all of it. I figured if I'd been through three rounds of the same fight and still woke up grateful, the least I could do was write it down.

The book is called It's A Glorious Day. Six decades of gut punches and mornings that somehow still felt like gifts. Real stories from a real life. Nothing polished up to sound better than it was.

If that sounds like something you or someone you know needs to read right now, grab a copy.

Real stories change people. I'm living proof.

Talk soon,

Tony "the lawn still gets mowed" Ventimiglio