Serenity…
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."—
Kait Vinson (@TheRealKait) September 12, 2011
The Dating Market
So I was sitting up late on Sunday night trying to come up with a closed loop systems design for my MBA class due on Monday and I was stumped. I had tried everything from road construction to a company diagram but nothing seemed to be working; it was all too complicated and boring. My Pandora radio station then decided to give me a touch of inspiration with the song “The Mating Game” and out came this…
You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
It’s a classic phrase, it’s been said a myriad of times by countless people, it’s been sung in innumerable songs but never has it been so clear to me as the past few days. Today I lost someone very dear to me, my grandfather. Now I must say that we had a different relationship than is typical of grandfather to granddaughter. He was the only grandfather I had as my other one passed before I had any recollections. In my entire life I can only count three times that I ever saw my grandpa. We live out west while they’re up in Michigan and the travel never seems to quite work out. I never really thought of having a quality relationship with him other than the occasional phone call until during one of the rare trips I was able to take, my grandfather and I had a conversation that changed everything.
I’m not the type to sugar coat much of anything so I’ll be the first to admit I had reasons for disliking my grandfather and even resisting a relationship with him altogether for many years. I was reluctant to accompany my mother to visit my grandparents but once I was there the little sweet man with a pot belly and an infectious smile melted every bit of my heart. As the week went on, I got to talking to him and realized how incredible of a person his life trials and tribulations had made him. I remember standing in their little kitchen late into the night just chatting with him about anything and everything from day to day things going on in my life to his religious convictions that have propelled him through the past 70-some years of his life. I took that conversation for granted, assuming I’d have more chances to delve deeper into the soul of the man with whom I had found so many similarities I had previously been unable to pinpoint.
The last time I saw my grandfather he was almost half his normal size. The chemotherapy had wreaked havoc on his being revealing a tiny frame that was normally masked by his powerful laugh and even though his hair had somewhat grown in it was pure white. I listened as he told my family the story of when he met my grandmother for the first time as teenagers. He sat there, hand in hand with the woman he loved his entire life and cried tears of such joy when he remembered how beautiful he thought she was the first time he saw her. It was in that moment I realized the immensity of this man’s love for not only his wife but his children, family, friends and life and no matter what plagued him he always had that love to pull him through.
Now his journey is over but it didn’t end without dozens of people by his side and hundreds of prayers for his peaceful passing. I always assumed I’d see him one more time, call him again someday but it never really hit me until my grandmother held the phone up to his ear for the last time and I told him I loved him that I missed an opportunity to appreciate his presence and influence in my life. But more than anything I knew it pained him so that he couldn’t tell me he loved me back. A thousand miles away I felt him reach out in love for me one last time…
And that’s when I knew you never ever really know what you’ve got until it’s gone…
Read the original post at Lenovo University of Bloggers
Nothing is worth more than this day
A wise person once told me that nothing is worth more than this day because you never know if you’re going to get another one.
That wise person was my mother. The quote is engraved on a plaque above the kitchen sink so I saw it every day at home but never quite understood the meaning until this year.
My mom and I have a unique relationship. We are exact opposites in so many ways, she’s dark and I’m blond, she tells everyone what’s on her mind all the time while I brood until it comes flooding out all at once and we have a tendency to spar only to find we’re on the same side. But there is one thing I know I got from my mother: my inner fire and resiliency. My mother and I have one powerful bond: we both had a life-threatening experience in our young adult lives and have lived to tell the tale. You know mine. Now here is hers.
At the age of 17 my mother was a strong, intelligent and independent woman. She had graduated from high school early, started community college and was already living on her own. Her dreams were big and she had more than enough talent and drive behind her to achieve them. That was until she got cancer. Back in the day when my mom was a teenager not much was know about cancer. While the opinions varied including people thinking it was contagious, the verdict was all the same: it was a death sentence. At 17 my mother was handed her life and expected to tie it all up nice and neat within 6 months because that was as long as she could possibly last. The precocious spirit of my mother decided to deny the doctors this final decree on her life and instead of going home to die as they suggested she made a promise to herself that she would only go home to live. As she fought for her life without knowing how she was going to get through, her siblings and friends stopped coming by, afraid they would catch it or as a grief coping mechanism. Only two people remained by her side: her mother and her father. While her father spent his time bartering with God for him to take her place, my grandmother spent her waking moments with her daughter. The love and support was the foundation for her survival.
Through the miracle of God and life, my mother lived to be my mother and sit by my side as diligently as her mother did for her. Shaken to the very core at the prime of her youth my mom has never again taken a single day for granted. Small details of life have never mattered to her and her focus on the big picture of loving those around you with everything you have all of the time has made my life and that of everyone around her extraordinarily blessed. My mother is a spectacular woman, no bad hair day has ever upset her but missing getting a hug goodnight from any of her children will. This is the beauty of my mother and the gift of her life; she gives each and every one of us, my sister, brother, father and me everything she has every single day without fail. Each day is a new day with more to give, more to love and more to live. I only hope that someday I can live life the way she does, because nothing is worth more than this day.
Read the full post at Lenovo University of Bloggers!
