I am so proud of Skippy Mesirow. No, not because he has worked so hard with intelligence and great passion to make Aspen a better place to live. No, I am so proud of who he is as a person. I speak from first-hand knowledge and perhaps some prejudice. Nobody knows him better than his mother, grandmother, sister and me, his step-father. Skippy’s life has always been about family, love and giving back.<\/p>\n
I hope you will indulge me in sharing the Skippy that you may not know.<\/p>\n
At age 7, my mother and my wife’s father were in wheelchairs. Skippy was always the first to jump up and wheel them around. He had a birthday swimming party at age 8. He had a friend suffering from a rare disease that affected movement and speech and required a wheelchair. He wouldn’t have the party without her. When I was losing my father and his mom was losing her father, Skippy never left the hospital room for days, as he held their hand until the end.<\/p>\n
Later in his life he helped found and is on the board of The Children of Heroes Foundation, which raises funds for children who lost parents in the military. He helped found Enabled Enterprises here in Aspen along with myself and the late Casey Owens, a wounded Marine hero who lost his legs in Iraq. The organization’s mission is to support veterans’ needs. The organization is now national and its partners are a general, an admiral and colonels.<\/p>\n
I am sure you don’t know about these efforts because he didn’t do it for publicity; that’s not who he is. He gives from his heart, his caring and his love.<\/p>\n
He is a blessing to his family and everyone who knows him.<\/p>\n