Perseverance

Over the past few years, Mike's alma mater, Warner University, began offering alumni the opportunity to purchase bricks to be inscribed and placed on campus (just like the ones we have at CitiField and Fenway Park). Mike always talked about his time at Warner as being some of the fondest and most meaningful years of his life. We kicked around the idea of getting a brick, but never followed up on it. After Mike's passing, I decided to purchase a brick in Mike's memory. We all tried to come up with a fitting word or phrase that would sum up Mike's legacy. It was very hard to narrow down the choices, due to space constraints and also because there simply aren't enough words to aptly describe him. Mike's dad finally came up with the word "perseverance." We instantly liked it, but the moment that took my breath away came when I looked up the word online in order to check the spelling. Here is the definition as listed by dictionary.com -- check out the second definition:

per·se·ver·ance [pur-suh-veer-uhns]
noun
1. steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.
2. Theology . continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation.



The brick was just placed on the Warner campus. Hopefully I'll get there sometime to see it for myself.