Thought for TODAY Reminder from Mahatma Gandhi

"Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow." 

-Mahatma Gandhi

Preparing for a Final Farewell

As I sit here thinking about the emotionally charged tragedies and events that took place this week, I prayed to God for granting those families a double dose of strength to help them through their crisis, although I didn’t know any of them. There were situations where some people became a victim while trying to be a Good Samaritan, while others faced watching loved ones slip away from this life, due to a long or short-term illness.

As of yesterday morning, my family has joined the ranks of those families this week who are mourning over the departing of a friend, family member or even the close companionship of a pet. Although we knew what the doctor’s diagnosis was for my father’s condition due to suffering a heart attack two days before Christmas (December 23, 2012), you are still never fully prepared for “that” phone call in the wee hours of the night or morning announcing that they are gone from this life forever. Early yesterday morning at 1:52a.m., I was awaken by “that” phone call. When I looked at the caller ID and I looked at the time, “I knew” and my heart began racing faster than the speed of any NASCAR driver’s car engine. I could not control that, because it was natural and I just had to go with the flow.

Your mind begins to race like a child’s spinning top toy and you become literally numb. This isn’t the first time I experienced this and it certainly won’t be the last, as long as I am living.  It’s never easy, unless you have no emotional attachment to life, but as you are faced with the reality of a dearly departed family member or friend, you go through a roller coaster of highs and lows that you just have to let happen. At some point however, you have to get off that ride and move on, not getting over it, but dealing with and getting through it.  

While sitting here drafting words for my father’s obituary, then planning to collaborate with the thoughts from my sister and brothers later today, I needed to write down my current thoughts and feelings from just this week’s tragic events alone, in order to garner “that” strength to make it through this grief. While the emotion drifting in the air from my father’s transition, which happened a few days before Mother’s Day (my mother passed away from this life on Easter Sunday 2003), I am still strengthened (in an ethereal kind of way) by these occurrences. The time my parents were here on this side of life was theirs. How they lived it, was on them. Now, I am standing with a little more strength to do “this,” to make my time here more meaningful and to strive every day to leave a legacy that will be a helpmate and not a “hinder-mate” on this side of life for someone who truly needs it. For all of our foreparents, and us, just as it was for my parents “The life I live, will definitely speak for me!”

In times of grief you need some moments alone, in the quiet of the morning, when unspoken words resonate with an epiphany of what you need to do and how you have to respond, whether you like or agree with the answer or not. Despite the fact that everyone’s pain and tragedies are different, no one tries to boast about “My pain and tragedy is worse than yours!” A connection of compassion and peaceful reassurance needs no explanation between people who are “going through” some things. We all have our issues. I think that leaning on God’s Everlasting Arms is that one thing reassuring me the most; and that assurance gives me the courage and strength to do what sometimes seems like an impossible task!