Memphis, Tennessee

Spring 2003

The steady beep of the equipment softly repeated in the hospital room. Glen was somewhat comfortably resting in bed with IVs and monitors hooked up to his body. The window let the Tennessee sunshine through, and the clear spring day sparkled outside.

It had only been a few short months since the Iliad match where he had reunited with the fans and reclaimed his glory. Unfortunately, the toll that match had taken on his body was insurmountable.

At first, the doctors had tried to strategize for a knee recovery that would get Glen back in the ring, but the test results were definitive: his career was over.

It was a wrestling career that had spanned four different decades with matches and fame around the world.  It was a career full of peaks and valleys. Triumph and loss. Happiness and heartbreak.

There was a knock at the door and a nurse’s head popped through.

“Everything okay in here, Mr. Miller?” the polite woman asked.

Glen was soon heading into surgery, and it was only a matter of minutes before they wheeled him out for the knee operation. The old wrestler smiled back at the nurse.

“All good,” Glen replied in his deep, southern voice.

Truth be told, Glen was getting a little tired of all the “check ins” by the nurses. It was distracting.

Even though he had reunited with the fans one last time, he now often thought about his family; his ex-wife Charlene, and his estranged daughter Goldie whom he hadn’t seen in nearly ten years.

“Are you okay to take a visitor? Your operation got pushed back another hour,” the nurse asked.

“Visitor?” Glen asked, who was unsure who was coming to see him at that moment.

It was a very young woman who was probably in her early 20s. She had platinum blonde hair, stark blue eyes, and an all-too-familiar strong jawline. The young woman wore a gentle, vulnerable smile.

Glen could barely breathe.

“Goldie?” he asked softly.

The young woman didn’t say anything as if she were not entirely sure what to say.

She finally broke and a tear fell down her cheek before she speaking with a meek voice.

“Yeah, daddy, it’s me.”