People often ask me how, as a man, I became so devoted to improving the quality of women's lives.  It wasn't until age forty that I realized what had started me down my career path.    One morning more than thirty-seven years ago, I was awakened by the passing school bus.  I was thirteen years old, living at home with my two younger brothers and our mother, Doris Joy Heavin.  She had just passed her fortieth birthday.  She was a mother of five children and had suffered emotional and physical problems most of her life.  Her doctor had tried various treatments on her with little benefit. As I awoke to the sound of the passing school bus, my brother Paul came in and told me that I'd better come quickly because mother was sick.  As I knelt beside her bed, I could feel the absence of warmth.  I put my arms around her, first to feel for a sign of life, and then as a final hug.  I took my younger brothers, aged eight and nine, in my arms and gently told them that our mother was in heaven.     Her death was unnecessary.  The high blood pressure causing the blood clot  that took her life was unnecessary.  Rather than  _ , she could have dealt with the cause of her high blood pressure: we now know that exercise and proper nutrition will almost always reduce the causes of high blood pressure and most other chronic  diseases.     Many years later, while teaching a fitness and weight loss class to a group of about eighty women, I realized I was subconsciously  searching the crowd for the face of my mother. What made the author devoted to improving the quality of women's lives.
His mother's illness and death. The early loss of both his parents. His support to the rights of women. His knowledge of high blood pressure.