Blue Stars

It was just a request, my wife telling me to pick up the blue star pajamas at the house on Sunday.

I quickly opened up my phone and jotted it down in Google Note. Not wanting to forget with everything that had happened over the week.

When I left, I somehow knew it would be the last personal item I would be grabbing at the house of my beautiful mother in law who was so tired and sick.

It was all very sudden, she went in to the hospital a few weeks earlier not knowing the reason she was tired, we found out quickly it was stage 4 cancer.

It was a shot to us all, the girls taking it the hardest, they were about to lose their mom after losing their father only a few years back.

Next were the doctor’s appointments, the late night breathing treatments and pain management. I never saw 2 girls working so hard for a solution to a problem.

When we finally came to the realization that the battle would be lost we chose to bring her home.

Home, from the Hospice of room after room of sick or challenged people not able to take care of themselves, of uncaring or just numb caregivers, that had seen this all before.

Was it selfish? No, I knew that these loving girls could do more in the next 12 hours than the nurses that were paid to do so could.

We were very fortunate to have her for even that short amount of time. And I am sure she was happy too.

I got the Blue Star pajamas back home as requested, but mom was not ready for more time in the care of others. I would have done anything to keep her here longer, but I knew I couldn't.

She had a higher calling and was heading home.

I hope she is surrounded by real Blue Stars now.

Love You Addie.

I Believe In Miracles

I Believe In Miracles.

That’s absurd you might say. You can’t prove it was a miracle.

It might have just been dumb luck, or all the right things falling into place at the right time.

That is just your opinion, you will say.

You’re right. And I say it was a miracle.

A miracle that my son was born after all the miscarriages and high risk doctors said we couldn’t conceive.

A miracle that I was freed from addiction and it didn’t cost me my job, life or freedom.

A miracle that a person with only a high school education, could survive 2 layoffs, and still work at the most prestigious hotel in Vegas.

Sometimes it takes a miracle. Sometimes the odds are not in our favor, and no matter what we change it doesn’t work out the way we wanted. But it does work out.

We want it all to work out to our plan, but we can’t. It wasn’t really our plan to begin with.

We don’t have control of the outcome, only the work we put up to that point.

I agree that we should meet our challenges head on, and fight for what we want. No one gets everything, life isn’t always fair.

When we stop and see the miracles around us it makes the fight worth it.

I am fighting to keep my family healthy, my son on track to be the best he can and staying employed under the circumstances of our current economy.

There are people that are fighting cancer, to take their next breath, to have a positive outlook for the day.

These are when the miracles happen, when we aren’t expecting them to they show up in our lives.

Making the unexpected possible.

I am grateful when I can sit back and watch the miracle happen.

Not the luck of it all.

As Wayne Dyer Says: I am realistic, I expect miracles.

The Sleeper Must Awaken

(An excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Spend 24hrs A Day” that I hope to print before the end of year.)

In the classic story of Herman Miller’s “Dune” the duke’s son must make a trip to a hostile desolate planet and he is apprehensive about it. After speaking with his father about the trip he is told “A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” 

When we examine our desires to make a change in our lives what are the driving forces? If someone desires to climb Mount Everest they will manifest that reality till it is completed. They may however never make it to the top; they may only get as far as the foothills. Still however frustrated they get about never reaching the top of the mountain, they will not be as tormented as the person who never leaves their hometown to try.

How do we jar what is sleeping in our lives to become forefront and possible? How do we decide to make the change and awaken the sleeper? We are told we can do anything we want if we put our minds to it, so why don’t we?

It’s simple really.

Most of us want to reach our goals but never take any of the steps to try to accomplish them. Our excuse to ourselves is that there are only twenty-four hours in the day. We don’t have time to make such a huge commitment to ourselves. We have obligations and must attend to a busy work schedule and change diapers.

What goal is asleep inside you waiting to get out? Starting a new business? Maybe you have the next great Kickstarter idea? Maybe you just want to travel to somewhere you have never been.

When will you find the time in your current busy schedule to start working towards your goals? You have twenty-four hours of daily time. Within that timeframe we must try to find heath, rest, discovery, enjoyment, love, relationship and the meaning of life. What do all these things depend on? Your happiness - if there is no happiness it what you are doing you will never do it fully.

First we have to start to rearrange our current lives and schedules and start thinking about how to achieve our goals. We can start small. Give yourself 30 minutes a day and come up with 5 goals you want to accomplish. After you have your goals start thinking of the next steps to accomplish them and write them out. It is not enough to just come up with the idea. You need to figure out the next steps.

There are a million books that will tell you how to make more money, but how many tell you how to make more time? Money is far easier to come by. If we were to really look at all the things we do in our “Daily 24” how many of us could say “I have truly lived today”.

(more to come.)