Winter 1982

Memphis, Tennessee

Glen awkwardly limped down the hallway to the kitchen of his large, Memphis mansion. Each step, even with the crutch, was still painful.

It had been nearly six weeks since the freak accident in the ring during one of the largest pay-per-views of his career, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the idea that he was out.

No wrestling. No exercising. No Golden Glen Miller.

That’s what the doctors told him.

Of course, the doctors and the wrestling promoters told Glen that they expected him to make a full recovery and be back on top of the wrestling world by the end of 1993. The optimism didn’t make Glen feel any better, though.

For now, he was secluded at home with his wife, Charlene. And bless her heart, she had been indominable since he returned home, which provided the real substantive support the man truly needed.

That said, Glen mostly avoided mirrors, lest he take in the reflection of a man who had rampantly cheated on his wife while on the wrestling circuit. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that he had lost his moral compass more than a hundred times while away from home.

He knew, deep down, and that he didn’t deserve her support nor her love.

Achingly, Glen limped with the crutch around the corner and into the kitchen where he half-expected Charlene to be making breakfast. Instead, he found her sitting at the kitchen table staring at something in her hands.

“What’s the matter there, honey?” Glen asked innocently.

Still, Charlene didn’t reply. She just sat at the table and looked down.

With a few loud bumps and grunts, he shuffled his way across the kitchen and to her side where he put his free hand on her shoulder. For a moment, he realized he genuinely had become to appreciate and love his wife again.

Charlene shrugged her caramel hair off to her shoulder and looked back up to him with misty eyes and showed Glen what was in her hands.

It was a pregnancy test.

“We’re going to have a baby, Glen,” she said weepily-yet-happily.

Glen’s world stopped. They had always talked about having children, but it always seemed so far away.

The large, golden-haired professional wrestler smiled down to his sweet wife, and his heart began to burst with new meaning.

Fall 1984

Memphis, Tennessee

“Say ‘cheese’!” yelled Charlene as she snapped the polaroid camera, and Glen held up his nearly-toddler daughter in his arms and smiled.

It was Halloween, and this year Glen was wearing a large monkey costume while his daughter, Goldie, was dressed as a cute, little banana.

Charlene laughed at the hilarious juxtaposition and ran back up to her husband and daughter. She gave Goldie a little stomach tickle and began to speak like a truly amused mother.

“Ah, little Goldie. Are you daddy’s big banana!?”

The little girl with shoulder-length blonde hair giggled and smiled back.

“Oh, Glen,” said Charlene happily. “You sure you’re good to go the full block for trick-or-treating?”

Glen looked down at his knee and thought for a moment. It had been more than four years since the injury had forced him out of wrestling, and he still felt like his knee wasn’t one hundred percent.

If you had asked Glen about this a few years back, he would probably have told you he would have taken his life he couldn’t wrestle anymore.

But Goldie changed all that.

She saved him.

She unlocked an entire supply of love in his heart that he had never known existed; enough love to make him happy to be himself and make him happy to be Charlene’s husband.

He had engrossed himself so much in being a father to this little girl that he had forgotten about all of the self-aggrandizing from his past. All Glen cared about anymore was being the role model from which Goldie would build her own expectations of men.

Glen truly loved being a father, and the past few years away from the wrestling ring felt like being tucked away where he was free to live life happily, freely, and without burden.

“Glennie?” Charlene asked again. “Are you good to go around the full block?”

The blond-haired wrestler, now firmly in his 30s, took measure of how his leg felt.

“Yeah, sweetie, I’m good.”

“Well, you haven’t complained about your leg in quite a while. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about more than trick-or-treating around the block?”

Glen knew what Charlene was encouraging, and he knew she was right.

It wasn’t that Glen wanted to leave this happy life behind him to begin wrestling again, he wanted to bring it with him.

He wanted to wrestle again with actual purpose behind it, and Charlene and Goldie gave him that purpose.