February 7, 2017 – Celebrate your life everyday

          There have been a few emotionally stressful days these last few weeks.  My eldest brother, Alfred, died in the hospital last night.  I got the final report this morning from my sister-in-law, the new widow.   My heart wrenches for her grief.  I hastily calculate they were married about 45 or 46 years. He is in a better place after this long illness.  Since they are half a country away, in the Midwest there is not much I can do on this end except be there on the other end of the telephone.  It seems so inadequate at the moment.

          And, yesterday, I drove 2 hours south to the Greenwood hospital in South Carolina to see a dear old friend, Judy, wake up after by-pass surgery.  She is barely 6 months older than me and she is going through life saving surgery, not the first time, but a third situation.  It gives one a sober reality check.  And, while I drove home I got the additional sad news of my Uncle Willie’s death earlier in the day.

          So, this morning to calm myself and deal with all of this uncertainty about life I pulled a treasured book from my recently cleaned and organized bookshelf by Alexandra Stoddard, printed 2005, entitled “Time Alive – Celebrate your life every day.”

          Let me share with you just a few quotations from her book as I deal with the passing of my brother and reflect on living my life to the fullest each and every day . . . taking in the bitter with the sweet as life is so fragile and life is definitely ‘bittersweet’.

          “. . . real life is found in the present . . . every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know.”

          “ . . . if we could figure out how to put time to wise use, we’ve unlocked the door that holds a secret to every aspect of our lives.”

          “ . . . nothing happens outside of time.  Our entire life is experienced within the movement of time.”

          “The only time we are alive is now.  If there is something we want to do in our lifetime, we should begin it now.”

          That is the very theory I had last fall when I started this blog – I want to write. I want to remember all the poignant memories I have and share them with my dear friends and family that are the actors in those memories or their acquaintances in the shadows who find great pleasure in those exposed flashes of the past – both good and bad.

          How do I verify this last statement?  Yesterday, my friend’s sister upon greeting me at the hospital exclaimed her joy in my blogs where I relate an amusing anecdote of her sister and me doing something. A perfect example is my blog on December 18, 2016, entitled “The Mansard Roof Adventure”.     When my friend's sister said, “She’s done that to me many times!” I knew I was on the right track with my blog.

Sudden, my good friend’s sister became my soul sister as we both knew the shock of the moment, the trepidation of infringing on a total stranger, and the ultimate surprise that we had both experienced when Judy had pulled us along to the door of a stranger and knocked on the door.

An excerpt of that blog:

“All they can do is say NO.  But, if you never ASK . . . .” her voice trailed off.  We were at the front door.  She knocked, turned to me and said, “You never know.”

          I think Judy has learned the art of living in the moment.

          Me – I am now ‘cramming’ on learning how; when I figure it out – I will share it with you.