4.17.2011
death is not the worst thing that can happen....
Not living is... Hello, back from cleaning. everything. lol. My gramma was an interesting lady. But I have some regrets about her life. I have no idea if she did... But she was a case study in delayed living...or really....not living. She was born into a family as the baby.. Her parents told her that they had her to "take care of them in their old age." Then she fell in love with a man, but didn't marry that guy... she married my grandfather (*I am grateful, allthings being equal, I probably wouldn't be here if she hadn't*) She confided that to me one day when I came to visit. that she hadn't loved him... well, I guess he sensed that since he left her for another woman and my gramma waited 19 years for him to come back before granting him a divorce. 19 years. My gramma died at the age of 82...so nearly a quarter of her life... waiting for a man she never loved because divorce didn't 'look good'. Then... she gets a financial settlement in her mid 60's...enough to travel the world on a cruise should she have chosen to do so.... she always wanted to travel.. But never did... She would ask me to send her postcards from all the places I had been..and I did. When I would go to visit her, she would have them pinned above her headboard. But when she had the money and could...she was too afraid to go. I said "gramma,what are you afraid of?" I wanted to finish that sentence with the word 'death'. I knew what she was afraid of. living and dying. I did it for years though.. and occasionally I still do it. I think we all do.. as if the worst thing that could happen was death or failure. When the worst thing that can happen is to never live. night all, chris out.
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15 comments:
We were given this beautiful life to live. Not to spend rotting away. Life can be an amazing thing if one chooses to live it they God meant for us to.
You're right, death is not the worst thing. Waisting your life is! Great post!
You always write posts that make me think about things more than I usualy do.Gotta live it while your here :)
I know this is a bit off of your point, but your title reminded me that a doctor said those very words to me one day.
My job was such that I sat across a desk from a parade of doctors all day long. They'd sit across from me , look thru patients' charts, tell me to do what they were about to tell patients that they were going to do :) and then leave to be quickly replaced by another MD.
I had some medical thing going on--high blood pressure--and an MD heard me telling my co-worker sitting beside me that my BP was 201 over 104 (w/ meds).
The MD stopped writing in his chart, looked at me and said that that was a very serious number and I needed to ttend to it. Somehow, something else he said (I don't remember.) caused me to say that I wasn't afraid of death.
And then he said, "But you may not die. You may end up a cardiac cripple, paralyzed or unable to speak for years. There are worse things than death."
That kind of made an impact.
Deb
Great post Christine.
Thank You.
Sheilagh
xx
that is super sad (and deep) as usual. Thanks for the encouragement to live!!
I think we can all relate to this... Fear is what keeps us fat, unfit and trapped. Fear is what prevents us from realizing our dreams and our potential. I'm only now learning to let go of paralyzing fear and my life is "exploding" right now. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Great words to live by. I grew up being a fearful person, probably because I had a very fearful mother. I have now done things in life that I never thought I would attempt, but I have a way to go yet. Sometimes I think keeping excess weight on allows me to avoid things that I'm afraid of attempting. I need to really evaluate such thoughts and then take some steps to move forward!
I believe Chris, it is that generation...my grandmother had a friend that went to nursing school, moved and married in Hawaii and she always told me we would go together when she didn't have my grandfather to take care of. He on the other hand, told her to go and not worry about him. He passed before her, however, when I brought it up she would look at me as if I had 2 heads. Towards the end before her strokes, she became very bitter!
My plan?? Be happy, enjoy life and don't give it to someone else to wither away your dreams!
you were chris out before you finished """putz out'' have a good night all, oh but is today not night
Your stuff is so great. The way you deal with things that many of us have been mulling over, but you really know how to share insight on any subject- especially the important ones.
Life is meant to be lived and I figure unless I get to be reincarnated or something, this is it. No re-dos. So I want to get every last drop out of this life. It may have taken some of us a while to realize this, but we're here now and we're here to make the most of it!
I read your post last night... but went away without commenting. It hit a little too close to home for comfort.
I guess that is my deepest fear... a wasted life... too many years focused on this weight thing. I supposed that is one reason I feel it so intensely at times... to get it over, to get ON with life.
And why I suppose I can be so annoying to those younger, when I bug them to do it sooner, not later. :-} I don't want THEM feeling this way, that they wasted so many years wandering in The Land of Fat.
I hope your post helps to convince everyone needing that extra oomph to do it NOW.
Loretta
=^..^=
Wow. What a powerful essay.
Fear is a major tyrant for me too, sometimes, and usually it turns out that whatever I was afraid of was harmless. It's the things I can't see coming that hurt the most...and no sense in worrying 'bout those ("borrowing trouble", my own Grandma said) because worry only diminishes today's joy.
Personally, I thought I would just naturally become braver as I grew older. Discovered the opposite. Fear grows. Gotta face it head on. Gotta try to move straight through it no matter how scary.
Great comments, above, too. Much wisdom here.
Well she's still with us, teaching us all, that life is too short. And fear needs to be fought and defeated. I struggle with fear so much, it has hindered my life and stopped me from being the woman I was created to be. I cannot live behind fear anymore. EVERY DAY I do something to help myself break out. It's hard most days, but I do it anyway. Have too!! I've got important things to do. I'm not hiding behind fear anymore!!
Great post Chris!!
Keep focused!!!
So true. Life is not a dress rehearsal. Enjoyed reading your words.
Very true and since each day we have on this earth is a gift, then each day we 'don't live' to the fullest for for our good or other's good, then it's a day wasted and lost forever. Sounds like she wasted alot or most of her days in non productivity and fear. Like you said, we all do at some point but I'm so glad I still have another day to try to change that for myself and others.
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