I was released from the hospital today, after two very long and boring weeks.  It took them a while, but they finally discovered two different brain tumors.  I see the neurosurgeon at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester in two weeks.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 16-18 (NIV)

. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.


Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This is why I stay:

I spent all day at the racetrack parking cars, and I get to go to the Indy race now.

And it just came over the scanner that there is a tractor fire, in a field.

Someday this will all be great material.

Memorial day, and we do Memorial day things.  Sweat in the steamy heat, have a family picnic, pound wreaths in the loose dirt above graves.  Amazingly, since I’m not working during the Indy Race, I have Memorial Day off.

            I can’t remember if it’s today that used to be caled Rememberance Day or not. In any case, it’s a fitting title. And I want to remember…

           

            Names engraved in granite, dates and sayings made of shock and grief that radiate heat under the summer sun.  Ike and Helen Moore, my grandparents.  Joshua, my brother.  Kimberly, age 14; Stacie, age 5; both cousins.  Time has done little more than weather the gravestones and dull the pain.

            And the others, nameless, faceless men and women who chose to anonymously serve and protect.  I cannot tell you their names; only that there were brave, honorable, and sacrificial, to the point of death.  And death came; a bullet slicing flesh on a city sidewalk, the glint of sunlight off a machete in a South American jungle; a car that came out of nowhere.  I remember them, too, their names engraved nowhere but on my heart.

            And I remember those who did not die, but who have sacrificed some of the best years of their lives and pieces of their soul to serve their country.  My grandfather, great uncles, cousins, friends.  And those who have chosen to protect us domestically; firefighters and policemen; my father, my sister, my uncle, so many friends.  These are my heros, though they will deny any possibility that they are brave.  People the world will not remember, but who have daily exhibited courage, sacrifice, and honor.

            But the word “memorial day” means more than simply rememberance.  It can, in fact, mean celebration.

            Death isn’t often something to celebrate, even sacrificial, brave death.  It still leaves a life unlived, people unloved, memories not made.  I can’t celebrate that.

            But people are not courageous in a moment.  It’s an odd thing about courage, and honor, and dignity, and sacrifice.  It is not a momentary choice.  The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is not choosing courage in that moment; neither is the firefighter running into a burning building, or a police officer chasing an assailant.  There simply isn’t time to make choices. 

            These are very courageous acts, made by very courageous people, for whom bravery is more than a choice, more than a momentary impulse.  Instead, courage, honor, and sacrifice have become a way of life.  How we die is how we’ve lived; if we’ve chosen courage and honor in the small things, we will choose them in the big things.  Courage begins as a choice; practiced daily, it becomes a way of life.  Those we call heroes were heroes long before they died, and this is why I celebrate.  Not death, or even the way that they died, but how they lived. 

            And I celebrate this by practicing courage, and honor, and sacrifice in the small things of my every day life; telling the truth when a lie would be more convenient, letting someone ahead of me in a crowded store line, respecting others and myself.  And if the ultimate question is ever asked of me, I pray I respond without hesitation, having already prepared myself in the little things.

 

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

~James Dean~

~~~~~~~~

Do small things with
great love.

~Mother Teresa of Calcutta~

~~~~~~~~

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday
in life you will have been
all of these.

~George Washington Carver~

~~~~~~~~

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared with what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

~~~~~~~~

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

~Ghandi~

~~~~~~~~

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

~Albert Einstein~

~~~~~~~~

Judge each day
not by its harvest, but by the seeds you plant.

~Anonymous~

~~~~~~~~

How wonderful it is that no one need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

~Anne Frank~

~~~~~~~~

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

~Albert Schweitzer~

~~~~~~~~

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.

~Holocaust Museum~
Washington, DC

~~~~~~~~

The best way out is always through.

~Robert Frost~

~~~~~~~~

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

~Winston Churchill~

~~~~~~~~

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look
fear in the face.
You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

~Eleanor Roosevelt~

~~~~~~~~

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

~Dalai Lama~

~~~~~~~~

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.

~Edward Bulwer-Lytton~

~~~~~~~~

Self-trust is the first secret of success.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

~~~~~~~~

Who you become is infinitely more important than what you do, or what you have.

~Matthew Kelly~

~~~~~~~~

My mother said to me, “
If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general;
if you become a monk,
you’ll end up as the Pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

~Pablo Picasso~

~~~~~~~~

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

~Jonathan Kozol~

~~~~~~~~

I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

~Helen Keller~

~~~~~~~~

 Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. . .
Indeed it’s the only thing
that ever has.

~Margaret Mead~

~~~~~~~~

Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.

~Corita Kent~

~~~~~~~~

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

~Plato~

~~~~~~~~

There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well.

~Walter Reuther~

~~~~~~~~

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

~~~~~~~~

Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

~Martin Luther King Jr.~

~~~~~~~~

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

~Marion Wright Edelman~

~~~~~~~~

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

~Marion Wright Edelman~

~~~~~~~~

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.

~James Barrie~

~~~~~~~~

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

~Emily Dickinson~

~~~~~~~~

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

~Edmund Burke~

~~~~~~~~

He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own.

~Confucius~

~~~~~~~~

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

~Albert Einstein~

~~~~~~~~

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

~Winston Churchill~

~~~~~~~~

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

~Victor Frankl~

~~~~~~~~

Be not angry that you can not make others as you wish them to be, since you can not make yourself as you wish to be.

~Thomas a Kempis~

~~~~~~~~

Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.

~H. Jackson Browne~

~~~~~~~~

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

~Pablo Picasso~

~~~~~~~~

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

~Henry David Thoreau~

~~~~~~~~

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

~John Quincy Adams~

~~~~~~~~

 Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

~Don Miguel Ruiz~

~~~~~~~~

The time is always right to do what is right.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.~ 

 ~~~~~~~~

 A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experiences.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes~

~~~~~~~~

Therapy should alwyas be designed to fit the client and not the client ot fit the therapy.

~Milton Erickson~

~~~~~~~~

The test of our progress
is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much,
it is whether we provide enough for those who
have too little.

~Franklin D. Roosevelt~

~~~~~~~~

Know thyself.

~Socrates~

~~~~~~~~

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

~Louisa May Alcott~

~~~~~~~~

Everything can be taken from a man but … the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

~Victor Frankl~

~~~~~~~~

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

~Dorothy Thompson~

~~~~~~~~

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

~Helen Keller~

~~~~~~~~

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.

~Henry Ford~
also attributed to Mary Kay Ash

~~~~~~~~

We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

~Jimmy Carter~

Patricia Bennett

Age 75 of Ocala, FL, died Monday, May 22, 2006 in Elmira. She was the daughter of the late Lambert Fred “Bill” Pope and Grace Huston Pope Shull, and was born on February 10, 1931 in Oil City, PA. Pat was predeceased by her loving husband of 55 years, Shirley Alan Bennett; and daughter, Barbara Bennett Perkins. She is survived by her daughter, Cheryl Bennett of Elmira; and sons, Bruce (Susan) Bennett of Stafford, VA, Douglas (Lisa) Bennett of Sunrise, FL; grandchildren, Daniel Bennett, Julie Loving, Kristin Perkins, David Perkins, Katie Bennett, and Linae Bennett; great grandchildren, Caitlynn Bennett and Mathew Loving; brother, William (Ellen) Pope of Burbank, CA. She also is survived by several sisters and brothers-in-law, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, and many dear friends here in Elmira and Oak Run in Ocala. Pat was employed for a number of years at Mr. Panosian’s as head cashier, at both Main St. locations. She also worked as an aide at Coldbrook School and she taught Sunday School with her sister-in-law, Leona Bennett at Southside Baptist Church. Pat was a Past Matron of OES Chapter 323. She volunteered at the Clemens Center, as well as at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala. She was a loving Mom who always put her family first in all that she did. Mom loved dancing with Dad, playing cards and canning or freezing from the family garden. Her other passion was genealogy. Mom spent years researching the Thomas, Bennett, Pope, and Huston families and their extended family lines. Family and friends are invited to call at the Olthof Funeral Home, Inc. 1050 Pennsylvania Ave., Elmira on Monday, May 29, 2006 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM and again on Tuesday from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Funeral services will be held at the conclusion of calling hours (Noon). The Reverend James Crupi will officiate. Procession to Fitzsimmons Cemetery in Southport immediately following. Those wishing may leave a “Candle of Remembrance” for the family at http://www.olthof.com.

My cousin’s AIM away message reads:

“I think I just committed career suicide in order to preserve my dignity.”

Must be in the blood.

Jake Frawley, Bobby Welch, and Erin Reynolds.

Thank you for reminding me to always choose the harder right over the easier wrong, and that nothing is right if I have to change myself for it…and that sometimes, nothing but life really matters.

Even if it means wandering around Sampson Air Force base looking for white deer in our pajamas.

(P.S. To those who are wondering, I was able to take non-violent crisis prevention intervention, and passed with flying colors. Even exhausted and off meds, I did wonderfully.)

 

My right hand holds matches
My left holds my past
I hope the wind catches
And burns it down fast
I’m gonna step into the fire
With my failures and my shame
And wave goodbye to yesterday
As I dance among the flames So

Don’t try to save me now
Let the walls of my world all burn down
Just stand back and wait ’til the smoke finally passes
And I will rise
From the ashes
From the ashes
From the ashes

For all that I’m losing 
Much more will I gain
The hard part is choosing 
To change what needs changed
My step will be much lighter
With these demons off my chest
I’m born a better spirit
And lay the old to rest


I’ll walk away stronger
I will be flyin’ 
Higher and truer
Than I’ve flown before

My right hand holds matches
My left holds my past
I hope the wind catches
And burns it down fast

 

You’d think the world had ended, judging by the screaming and crying in my household last night out 9:45 p.m.  Elliot Yamin had been voted off American Idol, and my pop-culture obsessed teenage siblings had a nervous breakdown.

This after Meghan voted over 300 times Tuesday evening after the show.  I offered to take her down to mental health so they could discuss the symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder with her.

I may be able to take nonviolent crisis prevention this weekend. We shall see.  Or I could pay the three hundred dollars to take Therapeutic Crisis Intervention at CCC, but I would really prefer not to do that Odd, how taking these crisis interventions have caused more crises than stopped them.

I have no idea what I meant by that last sentence.

 

So.

I got the job I really, really wanted. You know, the full time one that would enable me to quit Subway and get a real life?

Except.

The training and orientation is ONLY being offered this weekend, as the trainer leaves for the summer.  It won’t be offered again until September.  And I can’t take it, since I have the kids all weekend.

My cousin, who just had a baby, is leaving the baby and going on her senior class trip this weekend. 

I cannot believe the unfairness of this.

I am writing a new story.  I actually got the idea after watching an episode of 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter, but I am not sure what triggered this idea.

Maddie Brooks is sixteen.  All she really wants in life is to pass geometry, be asked to the prom, and become famous.  You’d think the last would be easiest, seeing as her father is Jack Brooks, the famous actor turned talent agent, and her mother is Lydia Lerner Brooks, a famous actress who also just published her first book, which, of course, topped the bestseller list.

But no. Because it’s Maddie, life doesn’t work that way.   She decides that the only reason she is not famous yet is because her parents don’t know how talented she is, thus she sets out to show them.  She convinces her best friends, twins Nate and Jay, to try out for the school play with her.  All three land the lead roles, and Maddie is sure her dreams are about to come true.

Instead, her parents discover Nate and Jay.  So now, every time Maddie turns on the television, she is forced to see Nathan’s annoying, but loveable, face on a commercial.  And this drives her crazy. Meanwhile, her mother writes a play starring Maddie, which all of Maddie’s friends see, and know that it’s Maddie, and it’s not a nice character.

I may be just a little bitter.