Tag: hope

(((California)))

I know that I have a few loyal California readers, and I want to let you know that my heart and prayers are with you, and all whom you love. These last six months or so, in the United States particularly, it has been beyond proven that we are no match for the elements. May you all be safe and serene and find glimmers of hope in this horrible situation. If you get a chance, please let us know that you are okay.

Yesterday, marked the first real day of the new year for me. It was the first time I had my house completely to myself in over a month. (and as an introvert who craves solitude, this was deeply delicious) I went straight into a nesting instinct on steroids, and I cleaned every linen on every single bed in the house. I had saved our bed for the last, and so, way past our bedtime, our mattress pad was still drying in the drier. Therefore, I made up a makeshift pile of blankets on our bed and I told my husband that we were “camping.” We officially started the new year, “camping” in our own bed.

I no longer write a regular Favorite Things Friday blog post, but I do want to recommend a couple of fun little gadgets. The first one is one that I bought for myself, for my birthday:

Solareye Bird Feeder with Camera – This bird feeder is a joy. I am spying on all of my hungry little feathered friends with a close-up view. I’ve only had it up for a few weeks, and I have already “collected” 12 different species of birds, all captured on video, for me to view whenever I need a smile. This feeder turns “birds-eye view” on its heels! The Carolina Chickadee has proven to be my most frequent visitor so far. This hungry little guy has shown up 32 times already.

Also, my eldest son and his fiancee’ got us an Aura Digital Frame for Christmas and it is amazing! It was super easy to set up (with their help, of course. They’re young!) The best part of this frame is that all of us in the family can download pictures to a shared Aura App any time that we desire, and then the pictures (and videos) pop up on our frame. It’s such a lovely surprise to see a new picture of loved ones that we weren’t expecting, to suddenly pop up. I have owned other digital frames before, but the Aura takes things to a new level. I highly recommend it.

Spend those Amazon gift cards that you got for Christmas, on something good, that will continually bring a smile to your face. You can’t go wrong with either of these gadgets. Please share your gadget recommendations in my Comments, too.

Shifting gears, this was the daily peace quote:

“We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?“

– Jack Kornfield

If you aren’t sure what you deeply value, look at what you do, and what you choose, in your everyday life. That is what you are showing yourself, and the world, what you truly value. If you are feeling unhappy or unsettled, chances are, you aren’t living your true values. Take some time for self-awareness at this beginning of this new year. If you value love, health, family, friends, security, using your talents, truth, joy, travel, service, nature, knowledge, hope, peace, loyalty, beauty, kindness, progress, adventure, faith etc. are your actions reflecting these values?

Okay, before I close, here’s another big hug to my readers from the beautiful state of California! May the best of today, be the worst of tomorrow for all of us in 2025. Onwards and upwards . . . . It’s all going to be okay.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Holy Days

I like Christmas Eve best of the holidays because it tends to be the quietest time of the season. It is gray here today and typically, I don’t love gray days. Florida spoils everyone with its almost constant sunshine and so usually, I almost feel affronted when an occasional gray day appears, but today, I truly feel grateful for it. It is the closest thing that we’ll get to a snowy Christmas Eve. It is a quiet gray morning and it feels just right.

I read today that “holidays” really means “holy days.” We are currently experiencing a really spiritual time of the year. No matter what you celebrate or don’t celebrate, what religious/spiritual practices you do, or you do not partake in, there is a “holiness” about an ending of another year of our lives. Holiness means sacred. It means spiritually perfect and pure. There is a deep holiness to this time of slowing down and reflection and insight and reminders of all of the awe that comes from being alive. I read a quote this morning from the songwriter/poet, 77-year-old Patti Smith, that said something like, despite every negative thing that brings her down, going on around us, in the world and even in her own personal life, she still loves to be alive. She still loves to create. She still loves to do her work. If we are honest with ourselves, almost all of us, deeply cling to life. Maybe despite all of our grumblings, the truth is, most of us love to live.

I get really quiet at this time of year. I tend to go deeply inward. Sometimes this feels awkward and scary and I know that it puzzles those who are closest to me, and who also intimately know my wild, wacky, free-and-easy, cheerful loud sides. For me, these “holy days” are a time of absorption and sorting and processing everything (and all of the feels that come with that “everything”) which I have experienced in another whole year of my life. It is a time of deciding what I really need to part from, with all of the more accumulation of everything that occurred over another year of my life, and also what I need to hold on to, and to keep, as sacred. It is a personal system that requires stillness and awareness and vulnerability, and that is why I like the quietness of Christmas Eve.

I am wishing all of you the most lovely things in which these “holy days” have to offer. I am wishing for all of us the ability to surrender to what gifts this unique season has to offer to each of us – the kinds of unexpected gifts that may take quite some time to unwrap, and to ponder, and to assimilate into the new year. Happy Holy Days. May blessings abound.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Seven Things

This summarized list below is from an interview Kelly Corrigan had with Happy/Crappy author, Kate Bowler, and it is just too good not to keep the whole thing, in its quoted entirety, in the annals of my thought museum, Adulting – Second Half:

“1. The yeses we give too freely become the weights we carry unwillingly. 

2. Mastering our emotions isn’t about feeling them less, it’s about moving through them faster.

3. No one will ever care about our tiny concerns the way our parents did.  

4. Family disasters often become family folklore—and thank goodness for that.

5. Guard the hope of the young.  

6. There is a world of difference between observing feelings and being consumed by them. 

7. Purpose protects against loneliness.”

I’m sorry that I’ve been away from writing the blog for a while. Today is the first day that I don’t have something really time-consuming on the schedule to do, in a while. Today marks the first day of this holiday season in which I can focus entirely on our immediate family’s Christmas celebrations going forward. (hmmm, apparently I was giving away my “yeses” too freely . . . . see number 1. of the above list)

Number 2. of the list above is something that I was just reiterating to my husband when I told him that our youngest son would be going to his girlfriend’s parents for Christmas. Our Christmases are recently starting to go through rapid evolutions after years and years of same ol’/same ol’. Our four children are all adults. They all have serious significant others (whom we all, thankfully, like/love very much). We have to share our children. And we know this logically. And we support this with our values of wanting authentic relationships based on healthy mutual affection and not based on guilt trips and control. But still, those little pangs of nostalgia and sadness sometimes pop up. Our immature, kindergartner brat child persona doesn’t really like to have to share. At all. So, I told my husband, we must feel our feelings, notice them, and then let them move on through. It’s interesting to notice that when you don’t try to repress, deny, hastily react, or lay judgment on your feelings, how quickly they really do pass.

Number 3. of the list makes me smile because my husband, in particular, is really patient and empathetic when listening to any of our family’s litany of complaints about work, school, unfair policies, customer ‘service’ experiences, crappy products made in China, etc. etc. (I think that I lose patience with this tedium a little bit faster than he does, but I guarantee none of our kids would dare to bore anyone else with their “tiny concerns” that are safely left fallen on their loving parents’ burning ears)

Number 4. is so relatable. This Thanksgiving we experienced a trial in which right in the middle of preparing and cooking Thanksgiving dinner (a valiant group effort that involved our son’s new significant other, who is a dedicated, professional foodie), we realized that our brand new oven had broken. The turkey was getting lukewarm at best. We remedied the whole situation by trucking our half-made meal to a different kitchen to complete the process. At the time, I was frustrated (no, I was more like ragingly pissed), sad, embarrassed, flabbergasted, bummed, annoyed, shocked (etc. etc.) and so was the rest of the family, but we collected ourselves pretty quickly. We all remained calm and cool (on the outside anyway) and by the end of a delicious feast, we were already laughing about the situation which will probably remain in our family lore for a long, long time. (and yes, we got a new oven which was covered by its warranty – all’s well that ends well)

Number 5. on the list reminded me of my experience yesterday when my daughter and I spent the entire day at the Salvation Army helping people load their angel Christmas presents into their cars. Let me start from the beginning with this story: For many years my husband and I have bought presents for the children in our city, from adopting and shopping for children from various Christmas angel ornaments, plucked from a tree at his workplace. Me, in my typical “Curious Kelly” mode, started peppering my husband with questions: “I wonder how this works? Does our angel actually get the presents that we give them or do they spread them around? How many angels are there, do you think? . . . . .” He finally said to me, “Well, you could volunteer and find out.” Truth. It hits hard, but he was absolutely right. And so I write to you this morning, with a really, really sore body (many, many, many generous souls made for many, many, many heavy, heavy Santa bags) and with a bigger heart which grew three sizes yesterday. What could be more beautiful than being part of guarding “the hope of the young?” . . . Well, you could volunteer and find out.

Number 6. relates to Number 2. on the list. Feel your feels, but don’t wallow in them. Accept them. Hug them. But then wave them on their way! Don’t indulge. Every feel deserves its own time in the sun, and they all circle back, from time to time. Keep ’em flowing. (think of feeling your feelings, like a long chain of graduates shaking the principal’s hand. Let each feeling have its moment, and then move to the next feeling with your full, undivided attention. David Brooks says that we should “Treat attention as an on/off switch, not a dimmer. All or nothing.”)

Number 7. I think that purpose might be the most important thing that we can ever possess in our lives, but I also think that we complicate and we confuse the concept of “purpose” way, way too much. We tend to make it too “lofty” and unattainable. Purpose can be as simple as engaging in the gratitude of the miracles of nature that surround of us, every single day. As I grow older, I believe that my purpose now is to be the living embodiment and reassurance to those younger than me, that all is well. That they are going to be okay, no matter what. It is my purpose to live the idea that life is wonderful. Life is meant to be shared and savored and to be experienced in awe. My purpose is to be their comfort, that comes from my earned wisdom from living many years and many different stages of life. It’s not at all lonely to know that I can fulfill my purpose every single day, in everyday places like checkout lines, and traffic lights, and even at home. When I sit in peace and “wise-knowing” and joy, I add this magnanimous energy to the uplifting of this world, and then, those around me sense it and feel it. What could be more purposeful than adding peace and joy to the experience of our shared world?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Submittance

Yesterday was the first day this December that I truly felt “in the holiday spirit”. I don’t honestly fault myself for this slow start to experiencing the joy of it all. The truth is, I love my everyday life and my routines. I love spontaneity. Sometimes I feel like the holidays hijack all of my time and mindspace, and for that matter, even my living space, with bulky, red and green, glitter and glitz and a miles long to-do list. Sometimes I feel trapped into traditions and experiences that I really don’t want to partake in, but then I feel ashamed for not wanting to do them. And in all fairness, this shame is self inflicted. No one is forcing anything on me.

This year, I have met more people who are the very definition of Christmas elves, than I have encountered in a long time. I gave blood the other day, and the technician was a literally glowing with Christmas cheer. She told me that she sings Christmas carols all year long. She told me every creative position, every single night that she puts the Elf on the Shelf in, for her daughter, with pure unadulterated glee. A bank teller who waited on me the other day, recounted how she first found out the truth about Santa (and then lamented about how many poor children now find out about Santa from the internet which wasn’t around when she was a kid), but she never told her parents, because they all love Christmas more than anything in this world. The teller appeared to be in her thirties now and she was telling me all about the Christmas Hallmark special she couldn’t wait to get home to watch. The most obvious, vocal “Kamala Harris” supporter couple in our local neighborhood, has not let the election results get them down, even one bit. Every inch of their large house (and boat to boot) are covered in bright, cheerful lights.

I’ve been a little grumbly, honestly. I think that there for a little while, I was secretly chanting to myself with a sigh, “Okay, let’s just get this over with.” I never rained on the Christmas elves’ parades whom I have been encountering on a regular basis. That would not be cool. I can fake it ’til I make it with the best of them. But, I felt envious and curious at the same time. What makes someone so completely and utterly enthralled with this time of year? What makes someone wish that Christmas would last all year long?

Nonetheless, yesterday, I think that I quieted my inner protest and rebellion, and I surrendered to it all. My daughter and her boyfriend, hung all of our beloved ornaments on our tree, while listening to carols and my daughter recounted the backstories (trips, and events, and pets that have already crossed the rainbow bridge) that accompany each ornament. They enjoyed a sweet dinner with my husband and I, and we all finished dinner with trying and rating the latest jelly from our 2024 Bon Mamman advent calendar. Earlier in the day, I ran out to the road in my curlers to make sure that our recycling collection crew got their Christmas tips, and their smiles made my day.

That’s the true point of the season, right? Surrender. Surrender to the mystery of the bigger plan. Surrender to your faith. Surrender to the magic. Don’t try to make Christmas happen. Let it happen. Surrender to the season, and enjoy and delight in how it shows you its deepest depths of beauty and hope. Surrender to the whole myriad of feelings that Christmas brings to the table like an overwhelming feast, even the tough feelings. The feelings need to be processed – all of them. This season of the year compels us to slow down and to consider and to contemplate everything that we have experienced throughout the entire past year, and even throughout the past years of our lives. In a sense, this season unabashedly forces joy, and thankfulness, and the spirit of giving, on to us, even in the coldest and darkest time of the year. It is a time of year that cheerfully, yet determinedly reminds us of what means the most to us – the people and pets whom we love, our warm homes, our sustenance, our ancestry, our ability to give to others, our (sometimes cheesy) shared traditions, our faith in something bigger, and the reminder of what all there is to celebrate in our everyday lives. (Ironically, even grumbling about my everyday life being hijacked by Christmas, made me realize just how grateful I am for my daily life, and how I live it.)

I hope that I can spend the rest of this season in the spirit of surrender of what it wants to show me this year. It feels good to let the season happen with the idea that everything is unfolding as it should. If a poor carpenter and his pregnant wife from ancient times, were willing to listen to their higher angels, why shouldn’t I do the same? There is great peace in following the simple, silent guidance of a steady star of light, and waking up to what is being shown in the light.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Fluidity

Everything is fluid. Even how you think about things is fluid. Especially how you think about things is fluid. We have started getting Christmas cards and a couple of them have come from people who were from a time when we lived in a whole different state. I have really fond memories of the people there. We were young families, literally raising our kids as a village. The neighborhood we lived in was mammoth. It was so big that it was essentially our neighborhood kids filling the entire elementary school. But yet, the neighborhood felt small, due to the wonderful circle of people we cavorted with there.

Many of our former inner circle there, like us, have left the neighborhood, for different neighborhoods (upsizing and downsizing) and like us, have even left for different states. We had to leave that neighborhood, and that state, back in 2011, for the necessity of greener pastures to support our large family quickly descending upon college age. So, leaving there, was truly bittersweet. We had poured our heart and souls into re-designing and adding on to the home where we lived there, with the faulty assumption that it would be the home that even our grandchildren would come to visit. And then, almost immediately after we finished the totally draining (both emotionally and financially) years long housing project, the Great Recession housing crash happened. We essentially had to give that home away for pennies on the dollar.

For many years, I had bitter feelings about that home. It had become a financial burden and albatross around our necks. It became “the thing” that made it hard to get “a fresh new start” in our new state. It was amazing that a creation that I had once had been so proud of, and had poured so much of my heart and creative vision into, had quickly turned into one of my biggest nightmares. It was a really humbling, shocking, disillusioning time in the lives of our family. And for years, only thoughts of anger and disbelief and frustration and regret, surrounded any ideas of our former home.

Today, out of curiosity, after receiving the cards that reminded me of our “former life”, I looked up our former home. It had been sold again in 2017 and the owners had added on even more beautiful updates. Interestingly, I noticed that all of my feelings of anger and disgust, had dissipated. I am back to feeling proud of “my former creation.” I am back to feeling deeply proud of the fingerprints, and the heartbeats, and the creative vision that we had for that home. I am mostly proud of the happy history and memories that we added to that place which we called home for a time in the life of our family. I am back to feeling only a full fondness for a lovely time in my life, and the lovely nest which we had created for our family at that time. And at the same time, I have no desire to go back. I am truly fulfilled at where I am in my life right now, and I see how all of the dots in my life have been connected and are being connected, as the picture of my life is being lived.

I have noticed this circling around of feelings and perspectives many times, about many people and situations, in my own life. I have also noticed this in the lives of others. Life has a way of softening the edges, after processing the hard stuff. How many people, having gone through vicious divorces, end up deeply hugging each other at their shared children’s major milestones? How many people have been able to find the gifts of lessons and silver linings, and forgiveness of self and others, in even the worst circumstances of their lives? Oprah Winfrey is credited with saying this: “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it’s accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

If you are going through a tough time in your life, give yourself the knowing that someday you will likely look at this situation with a different perspective. The worst, sharpest edges causing the gashes, and the bleeding, and the pain, will dull with time. The sharpest edges will stop being able to hurt you anymore. That’s the beauty of true forgiveness. It’s an acceptance of what is, and deciding to only take the “good stuff” from the situation. Forgiveness is finally stopping the continually gashing of yourself with the sharp edges, and allowing yourself to heal the wounds, so that when you come back to viewing the situation, you will see that the now dulled edges, can’t really hurt you anymore. You will find that with time and distance, the healing has created a strong (and sometimes scarred, but often stronger for the scarring) barrier to what was once a truly visceral, seemingly unending pain. Believe this. Stop poking at your pains and let them be. Allow the miracle of the change of perspective to appear when the timing is just right. Believe in impermanence and fluidity because they really are the only constants in life, besides the underlying Love that holds us all afloat.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Exquisitely Beautiful

This has been a deeply cathartic, restorative year for me and my immediate family. It has been what we needed. And I didn’t set out for it to be this kind of a year for us. Of course, everyone hopes that every year will be special, and peaceful, and joyful, and exciting and relieving, but that’s not how life works. We know this. Sometimes “cathartic and restorative” comes from all different circumstances, even if others looking in, might not see what we have been through, in that same comforting way. Life is personal. In hindsight (which is usually the clearest vision), I’m delighted with what me and my family were guided to do and to experience in 2024.

I always tell my family, “Let Life love you.” And what I mean by this is, “Surrender.” Surrender to the belief that there is a beautiful plan in place, even when you start mucking it up with your own worries, and your own need for control, and your resentments, and your mistakes, and your actions and your inactions. Life knows what you really need, and is guiding you along every step of the way. You are just going down the beautiful stream of your life, and while you might be getting caught up with what is going on in your own little, fiery red canoe, rowing against the tide furiously, in the meantime, the current of the stream is still guiding you down to exactly where you need to go. And every once in a while, when you get tired of your own foolishness and you take a beat, and you take some life-affirming breaths, and you remind yourself of this fact, your eyes and your heart will be suddenly clearly opened to the beautiful synchronicities that are happening in your own life, and in the lives of all others. You will fully understand that Life does love you. Life does love all of us. Life is love, and the rest is just the games and the tricks that we play on ourselves in our own fiery little red canoes. And the games are okay. They are creative. They are just part of being alive, and being daring enough to spend some time being human.

There is not a more poignant time in life than during big beginnings and big endings. That is why we have created so many major rituals around births, and deaths, marriages, and graduations. We need these rituals to help us to store and to process the “big feels” that come during these major opening and closing times in life. I don’t think there is a time when you ever feel more alive than during these turning points in life and even when they are hard times, they are so exquisitely beautiful. The stream of life is exquisitely beautiful.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Veterans, in Gratitude

In a time period in history, where “service to self” seems to be the common theme, it is an honor to pay our greatest respects to amazing people who give themselves to something bigger than themselves. Is there anything more brave, selfless, honorable than this? Veterans, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Flowers Bloom

So, I am back home and I am bone weary. And I am brain weary. We had a wonderful visit up north, celebrating the wedding engagement of our son and his fiance’, and enjoyed visiting other family members. We did some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. And also, we might as well have been hiking in New York City. (14,000 steps in one day) I was so busy with all of the fun and the action and getting home and getting organized and getting unpacked and getting our groceries replenished, that it is just now, when I have fully and completely realized that my mind and my body and my spirit have yet to process what we have collectively been through in my community. I am tired. I am quiet. I am taking a big exhale.

We moved to Florida for my husband’s job in 2011. We have been through many hurricanes since then, but only one other time did we decide to evacuate. (that was for Irma in 2017) People who aren’t Floridians watch the hysterical, oversized, 24/7 news stories about hurricanes and wonder why we all don’t just flee the state, and also wonder why we ever go back. It’s not that simple. Nothing ever is. People don’t evacuate their homes for hurricanes for many reasons: finances, pets, stubbornness, a perhaps false sense of security from past experiences, horrific traffic and gas shortages, the uncertainty of where a hurricane is going to hit despite the gigantic “cone of certainty” ominously pasted over the entire state of Florida, for every storm (there are many, many recounted stories of people evacuating to places that end up getting the worst of the storms. For instance, one acquaintance told us that she tried to escape Hurricane Helene by going to her dad’s cabin in Lake Lure, which is in the mountains of North Carolina, with her elderly grandmother and young child. You can imagine the rest of that story, a story that she will likely tell for the rest of her life. Sigh.)

Since living here since the summer of 2011, this is the worst that I have ever seen our own local communities hit by hurricanes. It is sad. It is horrific. The pictures that you are seeing on the news are not exaggerated. Helene flooded most of our coastal communities. People have piled their ruined belongings, furniture, carpeting, mattresses, drywall at the end of each driveway, or have dumped them on specified empty lots, where the piles of debris are growing up like instant, ugly little mountains. Right after Hurricane Helene, in less than two weeks, Hurricane Milton decided to stir the pot with ferocious winds and rains and tornadoes. The devastation is immense. Trees, and street lights, and billboards, fences, and people’s roofs have been tossed around like Milton was an angry three-year old, throwing around his legos.

And yet, the facts are, most of us are relatively unscathed. Most of us (in our county alone there is over a million people who live here) survived with our lives, and our homes mostly intact. Most of us had some small, inexpensive clean-ups and repairs to do, and maybe some raking up of some sticks and leaves in our yards. And so most of us, walk around with that sickly feeling of great relief which is mixed with some sad and empathetic survivor’s guilt, when we see what the hurricanes brought on to others less fortunate than us.

So why do we live in Florida? Why is my one small county densely packed with a million people? Why do we live with the fear of hurricanes every year, and why are we willing to pay four times the average cost of homeowners’ insurance compared to the rest of the country? You tell me. Why do you come to Florida for vacation? I bet almost everyone of you has been to Florida at least once. We have gorgeous beaches. We have amazing wildlife. We are surrounded by water everywhere. (and water is from whence we came) We get to experience beautiful sunshine almost every single day of our lives. We have something for everybody here. Florida is one of the few true melting pots, of the bigger melting pot of our own great country. You cannot feel out of place in Florida. Anything goes. We embrace “Florida Man” and everybody else.

Please don’t feel sorry for us Floridians. We get the hurricanes. We call them “the price we pay to live in paradise.” We understand, and we take on the risks. We are processing right now. We are licking our wounds. Some of us will decide that the price is no longer worth it, and will leave. And that is okay. In the end, we will all be okay. The sun still shines upon us, the land of flowers. Flowers bloom.

Beasties

“The truth is simple. If it were complicated everyone would understand it.” – Unknown

I don’t need to form an opinion nor explanation about the above quote. It’s simple. Anything I would write, would complicate it.

This next quote was told to me years ago by a friend, who said that her grandmother would say it all of the time. I didn’t quite understand it, and I needed her to explain it to me:

“Snow does not fall to kill the world, but that every beasty shows its tracks.”

She said that it means that a lot of times what we think are “bad things” happening, happen only to suss the bad players out. So in that sense, “the bad things” are actually “good things”, or at the very least “good things” usually always come out of the “bad things.” And it is always wise to remember, when the “beasties” show us their tracks, this reminds us that the beasties are all around, and we should not follow them to our own detriment.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2769. What childlike characteristics do you still retain?

Empathy Machines

Before I get to what I really want to write about today, this:

“Reading is an empathy-generating machine.” – Dr. Vivek Murthy

Isn’t this the truth? When we are having conversations, we are typically taking turns waiting to talk. Our conversations have a tendency to veer off-topic. But when you are reading, it’s just you and the words which you are reading. And written words tend to be more soulful, more thought-out, more vulnerable, more honest than everyday conversations. Reading really helps you to understand how someone else feels about their experiences. Empathy is being able to answer the question: “How do you think this makes me feel?” for someone else, other than yourself. Reading gives you time to absorb and to understand the words, and to make conclusions about the words, without getting defensive or argumentive or confused. I absolutely love to read and empathy is a wonderful by-product of reading.

And also before I get to what I really want to write about today, this:

Credit: @woofknight, X

“Oh to have impacted someone so much that they find bits of your soul and hold the memory of you in things and places when you’re not around.” Isn’t this a beautiful part of the human experience? Isn’t it wonderful to have people (and pets) in your life who come to mind often, even when they are not around. And isn’t it also great to be the person who someone is reminded of, when they see or experience certain things? These are the types of aspects of living life, that my soul crushes on, hard.

Okay, finally to what I planned to write about today:

Yesterday, our youngest son called me around 11 am. And my heart fell to the floor. I knew that my son was at work, my kids rarely call me (texting is king), and also, he has epilepsy. Thankfully my son was fine, but he was letting me know that he had just gotten an emailed letter stating that his longtime neurologist/epitologist’s practice was no longer taking my son’s health insurance.

This was the final push, which we have long-known was coming, to force us to go about finding my son a new practioner. His neurologist is getting close to retirement age, he practices in a town three hours from where our son lives, and he is technically a Pediatric Neurologist. Our son turns 24 at the end of the year.

Already I have a lump in my throat, writing this. Our son was 14 when he was diagnosed with epilepsy. He started with the small seizures called “absence seizures” or “petit mal” seizures which had probably been going on longer than we think. I often thought that my son was ignoring me or distracted with daydreaming, which I know is not out of the realm of things that teenage boys do. (he has two older brothers) However, the summer that he was diagnosed with epilepsy, our daughter and I picked him up from a summer camp (where he had gotten very little sleep) and my son’s disjointed, disorganized, “filled with stalls and stares and pauses” stories about the camp made it clear that something just wasn’t right. Later that night, I found some videos of children having absence seizures on “YouTube” and my stomach filled with dread. I took our son to our beloved pediatrician the next day only to have him confirm my fears, and to quickly recommend one of the best pediatric neurologists in town.

It took a long while to see Dr. W. He had quite the waiting list of people from in town, and from out town, who wanted to consult with him. We went to see his younger associate first, and while this young man was fresh out of medical school, and was eager and obviously brilliant, he spoke entirely too fast, and too matter-of-factly, to parents who were quickly coming to terms that life as we had all known it, had come to an end, and a big change was in store for our family. We decided to wait for an appointment with the heralded Dr. W, to see what he had to say about our son’s condition.

I quickly understood why Dr. W was so popular with his patients (and all of the medical staff). He was kind, down-to-Earth, patient to answer all of the questions and challenges that I was peppering him with, and he took a genuine interest in our son, outside of his epilepsy. It turns out that Dr. W had grown up in a farm town, and he took an interest in studying neurology because he had an uncle with epilepsy who chose never to get it treated. (This uncle would often ride around on large tractors, to the dismay of his family.)

Over the years, we have had many ups and downs with our son’s epilepsy. Epilepsy is tricky because it is treated with heavy-duty brain medication, with heavy-duty side effects, and these medications work differently, with each individual and they can stop working as one’s body changes. There is not a “one medication fits all” situation with epilepsy. There are always more questions than answers with any condition involving the brain. Currently, what is thankfully keeping ours son’s seizures at bay, are three different medications, taken two times a day. Some people with epilepsy can never keep their seizures at bay. We are lucky. This I know. I have never been more grateful for anything else in my life. It took us a long time, and a lot of scary moments with our son having many major seizures, to finally get to this combination that currently works for him. And all of the while, Dr W. did everything in his power to support us, but more importantly, to support our son, as we went through this long process of finding meds with the least side effects, that still stopped the seizures. Dr. W cared for our son throughout high school, throughout college, and throughout starting his sales career in his young adulthood. Dr. W has been a constant in our son’s sometimes otherwise unpredictable experiences.

My son was an easy patient. His mother was not. I was a totally desperate, semi-hysterical, pain-in-the-ass, many, many times. (I’m pretty sure that my son and Dr. W probably have some private jokes about his neurotic mother who thinks she knows everything due to her intimate relationship with Dr. Google, and do you know what? I effing love Dr. W for this fact. Dr. W always made our son feel nothing less than a totally normal, awesome guy with an unfortunate affliction which we were going to find a way to control. Usually Dr. W spent the appointments more focused on these sincere questions: “What did our son think about that game last night? Whose our son dating now? How’s school going? Who can I reach out to at the DMV, to let them know that it is now safe for you to drive?”)

When you are going through something tough in life, you are never alone. God sends angels. They are usually in human form. Dr. W will always be one of these “angels on Earth” for me, and for my family. Always. He took “bedside manner” to a down home, yet ethereal form.

So yesterday, with my voice cracking, I told my son that he should reach out to Dr. W for a recommendation of whom he should go to now, for treatment of his epilepsy. The time that we long knew was coming, has now come. Thank you Dr. W, for everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, from the bottom of the deepest wells of my heart. I am a grateful witness and recipient, to you living a well-purposed life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

938. What is the most beautiful city in the world?