WEBVTT 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:06.240 Good afternoon, thank you all for joining us today. I'm Christine 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.006 Wilkinson, Senior Vice President and also president of the National on my 00:00:13.039 --> 00:00:18.567 Association and on behalf of the Association and the sound of a cup? I'd 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:23.046 like to welcome you to what is going to be a very inspiring session with 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:27.537 both Marie tillman and Anthony today. You think it just for people here 00:00:27.570 --> 00:00:29.846 and I know a lot of people are interested in your book. Kind of give us a 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:35.796 quick synopsis of what it's about why sort of the direction. Um, the book 00:00:35.829 --> 00:00:41.107 is not something that I thought that I was ever right. Um, and but there 00:00:41.140 --> 00:00:45.887 did come a point in time where I felt like I was more willing to talk 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:49.876 about the experience and was in a better place and found that actually 00:00:49.909 --> 00:00:54.747 makes helpful to other people going to the whole time and certainly other 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:58.336 people's stories was something that I sought out when I was trying to find 00:00:58.369 --> 00:01:04.607 , sort of what is the key to get through this. Um so in thinking, you know 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:08.087 , what, what is it that I wanted to write about? I wanted to write about, 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:12.527 you know, our life together, but also what it's like to lose somebody and 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:19.536 how you get through that. And um really the, so the crux of the book is 00:01:19.569 --> 00:01:24.527 this letter that Pat left behind. So it's called the letter, which 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:29.967 essentially wasn't adjusting case letter and tasting call. Um and a very 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.706 simple thing that he left for me was, you know, I want you to live. And so 00:01:35.739 --> 00:01:39.637 that's really the theme of the book is, you know, very difficult time. How 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:43.156 do you how do you do that deal with the right to go to get that 00:01:43.189 --> 00:01:47.406 opportunity? I didn't get interested and I just wanted to be a national 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:53.266 champ. That was my dream started. It's one of the ring. And so the book 00:01:53.299 --> 00:01:58.796 came afterwards is amazing opportunity. And I do a lot of people when 00:01:58.829 --> 00:02:02.757 you're speaking, you're only up on stage 30 minutes or so, so you can't 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:07.536 really put everything. And by writing the book is able to put my old lab 00:02:07.569 --> 00:02:12.606 store after the challenges are based on off the mat challenges we face it 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:15.837 and throughout all their becoming unstoppable. So there's a lot in there 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:20.696 that talks about that and I apologize for comfortable saying, yeah, you 00:02:20.729 --> 00:02:23.886 know, just some certain situations by experience, but it was therapeutic 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:28.416 for me to write it. And also I wanted people to read it and be able to get 00:02:28.449 --> 00:02:32.886 a sense of encouragement no matter what they 00:02:32.919 --> 00:02:36.837 imagined. For both of you, there were parts that were difficult to write 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:41.406 the magic, particularly, there's one part most challenging and how did you 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:45.487 get fruit? You know, I really sort of played a game with myself when I was 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:48.837 writing and Anthony was talking uh you know, things that you actually 00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:52.397 wouldn't tell people in person, but that for some reason it's okay to 00:02:52.430 --> 00:02:55.726 write down because it's it's a very strange process where it's just sort 00:02:55.759 --> 00:03:02.006 of your computer and you feel like you can sort of bare your soul and so 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:06.356 uh huh you know, a lot of it is actually difficult to look back on and 00:03:06.389 --> 00:03:12.036 read, but the writing part was pretty clear. You know, I journal a lot 00:03:12.069 --> 00:03:17.327 after Pat was killed and and a lot of that went into the book and I think 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:21.647 particularly those first couple of years after he died, it was, there was 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:25.967 a lot there that I wasn't sure that I wanted to share. Um, but I also 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.267 think that a lot of that is what people connect to the most in the book 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:35.927 because I tried to be honest with what I was going through, certainly the 00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:42.837 support that right after that was killed. We always said it was amazing to 00:03:42.870 --> 00:03:45.767 know that there were so many people that were impacted by his life and his 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:52.717 death to kind of have that outpouring of support. Um you know, I was not 00:03:52.750 --> 00:04:00.666 used to being the public eye and um it took me, I think that when there's 00:04:00.699 --> 00:04:03.307 something that's different about you or something happens that sort of 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:09.027 makes you different, um it's easy to start to identify yourself that way. 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:16.226 And so it took sort of figuring out that I could determine who I was and 00:04:16.259 --> 00:04:19.707 how I was going to take this experience and what I was going fat and to 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:24.236 kind of, you know, push away some of the outside noise and influence that 00:04:24.269 --> 00:04:29.277 was I felt trying to sort of put me into this box of no, this is 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:34.556 Patrolman's widow and this is how we expect her tax write and be talk 00:04:34.589 --> 00:04:40.236 about your mother who we saw out here. It looks like 20. Just can you talk 00:04:40.269 --> 00:04:46.127 about just the way she crazy just to face life. Okay. It was pretty neat 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:50.866 because I was born missing my leg. Doctors couldn't explain that to. And 00:04:50.899 --> 00:04:54.346 so I was a kid. I didn't really, I didn't understand for the longest time 00:04:54.379 --> 00:04:59.937 . I have one grocery store family way kids and adults were just kind of 00:04:59.970 --> 00:05:05.726 looking, it's whisper staring me with my eyes and something was wrong. And 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:09.426 so I struggled with that for quite a while because the way my mom raised 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:14.866 me, I didn't, I didn't see myself as any different even though outsiders, 00:05:14.899 --> 00:05:18.877 they treated me differently, look differently. It helped me knowing that 00:05:18.910 --> 00:05:22.277 no matter what happened when I got home, I was just Anthony, you know, I 00:05:22.310 --> 00:05:28.726 wasn't the poor kid in his leg, the handicapped heroes and that really 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:34.286 encouraged me to not look at whatever, not see that negativity and just 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:42.319 focus on what I want. Hi, 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:08.246 I'm Brenda Simpson. I live in Tempe and I'm an alumni. I'm Evelyn drove. I 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:14.017 live in Chandler and I am also an issue tonight. I really enjoyed it. It 00:06:14.050 --> 00:06:18.306 was the first time that I've actually gone to an event like this and 00:06:18.339 --> 00:06:23.757 listen to authors and when their authors that are personal to us to the 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:31.790 issue family, it made it be a very, very rewarding experience. I was just 00:06:32.029 --> 00:06:37.147 amazed. I was delighted by their insights. I was inspired by what they had 00:06:37.180 --> 00:06:41.217 to say and I was really, really pleased that both of these individuals 00:06:41.250 --> 00:06:45.486 wanted to give back to the community how inspiring they both were to us. 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:51.687 All right, Bill Class of 1999 former U. S. Army veteran and college 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:57.877 athlete. So I feel like I had a special connection with Anthony and today 00:06:57.910 --> 00:07:04.656 was very powerful to hear their stories and to get a little glimpse into 00:07:04.689 --> 00:07:09.160 their lives and be a part of this.