Chapter 18The Sandwich

After a productive day of measuring, sawing, sanding, and building, the carpenter went to the burrito shop to meet potential clients who wanted to hire him, while Michael drove his daughter to basketball practice. Sarah had given him the okay to help the other coaches, but he wasn’t allowed to lead the practice or yell.

On the way, Michael thought about the first and greatest coach he ever had, his mother. He remembered visiting her seven years ago and taking a walk together. She was a walking machine who walked for miles every day, but on this day she seemed very tired. Michael tried to convince her to turn around but she wouldn’t listen. She wanted to walk with him to the grocery store so they could get ingredients for her to make him a sandwich for his five-hour drive home. They made it to the grocery store, but on the way back she grew more and more tired. When they got back to her place, Michael told her to go rest and take a nap, but she wouldn’t. She walked right into the kitchen and made him a sandwich.

On his way home he ate that sandwich but didn’t think much about it at the time. Now seven years later, he thought about that sandwich in a whole new way. On that day his mom was dying from cancer but hadn’t told him how bad it was. She took a quick turn for the worse and that was the last time he saw her alive. Here she was, battling cancer, and her biggest priority was to make him a sandwich.

She not only encouraged him and pushed him to be his ...

Get The Carpenter: A Story About the Greatest Success Strategies of All now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.