Some People
Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go... Some stay for awhile and embrace our silent dreams.
They help us become aware of the delicate winds of hope... and we discover within every human spirit there are wings yearning to fly.
They help our hearts to see that the only stairway to the stars is woven with dreams... and we find ourselves unafraid to reach high.
They celebrate the true essence of who we are and have faith in all that we may become.
Some people awaken us to new and deeper realizations... for we gain insight from the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Throughout our lives we are sent precious souls... meant to share our journey however brief or lasting their stay they remind us why we are here.
To learn... to teach... to nurture... to love
Some people come into our lives to cast a steady light upon our path and guide our every step their shining belief in us helps us to believe in ourselves.
Let us reach out to others and feel the bliss of giving, for love is far richer in action that it ever is in words.
Some people come into our lives and they move our souls to sing and make our spirits dance.
They help us to see that everything on earth is part of the incredibility of life... and that it is always there for us to take of its joy.
Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same.
~by Flavia Weedn~
Are there any more powerful words than 'Thank You'?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Anniversary
The dictionary defines the word "anniversary" as “the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event” or “the celebration or commemoration of such a date.”
9.5 times out of 10, when I’ve heard the word "anniversary", there’s a "Happy" attached to the beginning of it. Today is the 1st anniversary, the angelversary, if you will, of when our son died, and there is nothing to me that’s happy about this day, what it meant a year ago, what it means this year, what it will always mean and represent. I will always miss our son. I will always wish he was still here with us, and I will never be able to celebrate the anniversary of the day he died.
Now that that’s out of the way...
I really do seem to find inspiration out of the most random sources. Or, maybe not so random, depending on your outlook. Trying to be as vague as possible, there’s a person I know who’s facing some incredibly big, major, scary stuff coming up really, really soon. I spoke with this person on Thursday, and I told them how much I admired the way they’d handled incredibly hard times they’ve been faced with, how they’d handled everything with such courage, faith, dignity & grace. This person responded by saying that this was the only way they knew how to face things, to be able to handle it right the first time of going through it. They said that handling this particular situation with courage, faith, dignity & grace was the only real way to handle it. I assured them that not a lot of people would be able to say that, and to be able to say it and mean it was something special. This person went on to say that it’s like baseball, and as cliche as it sounds, “It’s not if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Like life, it’s all about how you handle what life throws at you.”
There is so most definitely a reason why we meet people when and where we meet them...
Yesterday, we stopped in High Springs, FL, to pick up James’ dream guitar...a reissued ’59 Les Paul. The man we purchased it from was selling it for a close friend of his who had died from cancer recently, and the purchase of the instruments in his possession is going to help pay for his friend’s hospital bills. While we were there, (and after the payment for the transaction had gone through), James told our story...how we were headed to Valdosta afterwards for the anniversary of our son’s death the next day, and how this guitar was going to be dedicated in memory of Wilco for our future children to learn how to play guitar. This man came over, and with tears in his eyes, hugged both of us, and told us that his hopes for this guitar were to be able to carry his friend’s musical spirit so it could live on in other people and their lives. He also told us that tomorrow is another day, and to keep on pushing forward and look forward to the future and not live in the past. When we went to leave, his wife brought out 2 gorgeous white roses for us along with their well wishes.
Did I mention there is most definitely a reason why we meet people when and where we meet them?
On the way to the ATL, we were listening to James’ Pandora, and on the Sheryl Crow station, “A Long December” came on. I’m sure we all have those songs from high school that, no matter how hard we may have tried to escape them, they still have a way of finding us and tugging hard at our heartstrings. This one is most definitely on my list.
When this song was released, I was still reeling from my first big, real heartbreak. I remember coming through that year (& part of the next one) after it happened, wishing to never have another year like it ever again in my somewhat innocent, naive high school life. However, I think it was about midway through college and beyond, I started thinking back on that painful time. When I started thinking back on it, it wasn’t with the wish to never experience anything like that ever again. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t enough money that would make me want to go back and experience it all over. But, once I started looking back at that time, I realized how much I felt like I had grown as a person. Because, let’s be honest, coming through that time of having that first love and subsequently, losing that first love, it stings...it hurts like a bitch. But, coming through it, getting over it, moving on from it, surviving it...there’s a certain sense of pride and strength that comes with that.
Not that I’m trying to compare the feeling of losing a first love to losing a child...
But, here we are, a year later from losing our son, and as much as I would never want to experience my first heartbreak again, losing a child again just isn’t an option...
In this year, though, I feel like I’ve grown emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. I feel like we’ve grown. I feel like the people who’ve surrounded me with so much love have grown with me as I have with them. I feel like I have tried my absolute best to face this past year with courage, faith, dignity & grace, even when I felt so much less than all those things. And there’s a certain sense of pride and strength that comes with that.
And, I will never truly be over it. There will always be a part of me that’s missing. And I think that’s understandable.
But, maybe the future anniversaries of the day he died don’t have to completely be about that. Maybe it can also be about looking back at how far I’ve come, how far we’ve come, in that amount of time.
In a moment of curiosity, I decided to look up “A Long December” on Wikipedia, and Adam Duritz was quoted as saying this as part of VH1 Storytellers:
“...It’s a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening, and for once for me, looking forward and thinking, ya know, things are gonna change for the better - ‘maybe this year will be better than the last’ - and so, like a lot of the songs on the end of an album, it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least is about hope...and the possibilities...”
Thank you for the inspiration...
9.5 times out of 10, when I’ve heard the word "anniversary", there’s a "Happy" attached to the beginning of it. Today is the 1st anniversary, the angelversary, if you will, of when our son died, and there is nothing to me that’s happy about this day, what it meant a year ago, what it means this year, what it will always mean and represent. I will always miss our son. I will always wish he was still here with us, and I will never be able to celebrate the anniversary of the day he died.
Now that that’s out of the way...
I really do seem to find inspiration out of the most random sources. Or, maybe not so random, depending on your outlook. Trying to be as vague as possible, there’s a person I know who’s facing some incredibly big, major, scary stuff coming up really, really soon. I spoke with this person on Thursday, and I told them how much I admired the way they’d handled incredibly hard times they’ve been faced with, how they’d handled everything with such courage, faith, dignity & grace. This person responded by saying that this was the only way they knew how to face things, to be able to handle it right the first time of going through it. They said that handling this particular situation with courage, faith, dignity & grace was the only real way to handle it. I assured them that not a lot of people would be able to say that, and to be able to say it and mean it was something special. This person went on to say that it’s like baseball, and as cliche as it sounds, “It’s not if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Like life, it’s all about how you handle what life throws at you.”
There is so most definitely a reason why we meet people when and where we meet them...
Yesterday, we stopped in High Springs, FL, to pick up James’ dream guitar...a reissued ’59 Les Paul. The man we purchased it from was selling it for a close friend of his who had died from cancer recently, and the purchase of the instruments in his possession is going to help pay for his friend’s hospital bills. While we were there, (and after the payment for the transaction had gone through), James told our story...how we were headed to Valdosta afterwards for the anniversary of our son’s death the next day, and how this guitar was going to be dedicated in memory of Wilco for our future children to learn how to play guitar. This man came over, and with tears in his eyes, hugged both of us, and told us that his hopes for this guitar were to be able to carry his friend’s musical spirit so it could live on in other people and their lives. He also told us that tomorrow is another day, and to keep on pushing forward and look forward to the future and not live in the past. When we went to leave, his wife brought out 2 gorgeous white roses for us along with their well wishes.
Did I mention there is most definitely a reason why we meet people when and where we meet them?
On the way to the ATL, we were listening to James’ Pandora, and on the Sheryl Crow station, “A Long December” came on. I’m sure we all have those songs from high school that, no matter how hard we may have tried to escape them, they still have a way of finding us and tugging hard at our heartstrings. This one is most definitely on my list.
When this song was released, I was still reeling from my first big, real heartbreak. I remember coming through that year (& part of the next one) after it happened, wishing to never have another year like it ever again in my somewhat innocent, naive high school life. However, I think it was about midway through college and beyond, I started thinking back on that painful time. When I started thinking back on it, it wasn’t with the wish to never experience anything like that ever again. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t enough money that would make me want to go back and experience it all over. But, once I started looking back at that time, I realized how much I felt like I had grown as a person. Because, let’s be honest, coming through that time of having that first love and subsequently, losing that first love, it stings...it hurts like a bitch. But, coming through it, getting over it, moving on from it, surviving it...there’s a certain sense of pride and strength that comes with that.
Not that I’m trying to compare the feeling of losing a first love to losing a child...
But, here we are, a year later from losing our son, and as much as I would never want to experience my first heartbreak again, losing a child again just isn’t an option...
In this year, though, I feel like I’ve grown emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. I feel like we’ve grown. I feel like the people who’ve surrounded me with so much love have grown with me as I have with them. I feel like I have tried my absolute best to face this past year with courage, faith, dignity & grace, even when I felt so much less than all those things. And there’s a certain sense of pride and strength that comes with that.
And, I will never truly be over it. There will always be a part of me that’s missing. And I think that’s understandable.
But, maybe the future anniversaries of the day he died don’t have to completely be about that. Maybe it can also be about looking back at how far I’ve come, how far we’ve come, in that amount of time.
In a moment of curiosity, I decided to look up “A Long December” on Wikipedia, and Adam Duritz was quoted as saying this as part of VH1 Storytellers:
“...It’s a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening, and for once for me, looking forward and thinking, ya know, things are gonna change for the better - ‘maybe this year will be better than the last’ - and so, like a lot of the songs on the end of an album, it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least is about hope...and the possibilities...”
Thank you for the inspiration...
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