"You must be the change that you wish to see in the world." That is a quote by Mahatma Gandhi. It's a nice thought, but not really realistic. For example, I would like the world to change so that there are no wars. All of my life, I have not become a soldier, have not supported any of the war efforts and certainly haven't clamored for war, and yet, there is war, In fact, the only thing that has kept me from getting caught up in a war is the luck of having been born in North America, which has basically been war free over the past 100 years or so. In fact, to get to a war zone, I would actually have to travel to another continent.
On a very personal level, I guess his phrase could be true in some instances. Dieting comes to mind. Looking for a new job... that sort of thing. But certainly not anything that involves the world at large. So how do we affect change in the world around us? I think it is by realizing that nothing happens on a worldwide scale instantaneously. Little by little, things can change. It may take decades, however! Think, if each person who truly wants peace teaches their children that peace does not mean war elsewhere, and encourages them to not choose the military as an option, at some point the idea may gain traction. Instead of glorifying war through movies and books and dehumanizing our political enemies, we should show our children the true costs of war. Show them the children who have lost their fathers. The men and women who have lost limbs or their mental stability. Introduce them to people who are different than they are. Allow them to experience new cultures by meeting recent immigrants. Change on a global scale is slow, but it can be accomplished And, in the end, it does really start with the individual. So, was Gandhi wrong when he said that you must be the change you want to see in the world? No, he was correct. He just failed to mention that the change you want to see just may not happen during your lifetime.
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"Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." That is a quote by Helen Keller. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Helen was a deaf and blind women born in 1880, who became the first deaf and blind person to earn a college degree. Her life story is truly amazing and should be read by everyone, in my opinion.
If anyone has the right to talk about hope, it was Helen. She was born in rural Alabama and at the age of 19 months contracted an illness that left her deaf, mute, and blind. At the age of seven, her parents brought her to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where she met Anne Sullivan, a visually impaired student who became Helen's teacher. After many months, she had a breakthrough with Helen that helped to change her life forever. If you are interested in the story, you can watch the film "The Miracle Worker" which tells Anne's story about working with Helen. Over time, Helen learned to sign, read braille, and even speak. In her later years, she became a prolific author and an activist for many causes. After learning to speak, she became a prolific lecturer as well. Imagine, through all of that adversity, she kept a sense of hope and optimism. Not only that, she put her education to good use trying to help people with similar disabilities, as well as for political causes she believed in. Note that Helen was a pacifist and opposed Woodrow Wilson's policies in domestically, in Europe and in Latin America.. About Woodrow Wilson she stated: ""Could it be that we don't want to think badly of Woodrow Wilson... We don't want complicated icons. "People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions, and conclusions are not always pleasant."" It is hard for me to imagine being blind and deaf and still being able to learn how to speak and write, let alone doing so as eloquently as Helen did. On top of that, she had the empathy to stand up for and fight for people with similar disabilities. On this day of thanks giving, I find I am thankful for people like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan who use what God has given them to the best of their abilities. They prove that hope and optimism can go a long way towards helping people. In the end, Helen lived her beliefs and fought for them nonviolently, Isn't that something we can all aspire to? "You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream." That's a quote by C.S. Lewis. If you haven't heard of old Clive, then it's likely that you at least know one of his greatest works, The Chronicles of Narnia. He was also an Oxford professor, whose best friend was J.R.R. Tolkien.
Anyway, I saw his quote and I knew I had to write about it. You see, his quote is the way I try to live my life! I want to be active my entire life, and the best way to do that is to set goals. I try not to let my age stand in my way from doing anything I want to do. I may have to modify my technique a little bit, but I firmly believe that any goal is achievable if you put enough effort into it. Here are some examples: Iva Barr is 88 years old. This year, for the 35th-consecutive year, she will be running in the London Marathon. In fact, she ran in the first London Marathon ever held, way back in 1981! Want another example? How about Harriette Thompson? She is the oldest person to ever complete a marathon. She ran in the Rock N Roll San Diego Marathon last year. She finished the race in 7 hours and 24 minutes. She is 92. Age didn't stop them from doing what they wanted to do. Nope! They made plans and carried them out, and achieved their goals. There are two types of people in the world. Those that make do, and those that make excuses. When I go to meet my maker, I don't want there to be any excuses! I also don't want there to be any more regrets. If I want to do something, I find a way to do it. And that's it. I don't care if it takes years of practice, or great physical or mental effort. I set the goal, and then look for ways to accomplish it. Here are two examples. I have always wanted to do a head-high spinning back kick (since I joined karate anyway). I think they look cool and are the type of attack that will catch an opponent off guard. The problem was that I did not have the balance, speed or flexibility to do the kick. A few months ago, I started to practice the kick before the Little Ninjas class I help to teach on Mondays and Thursdays. Before each class, I would practice both spinning kicks and sidekicks on the large free-standing bag at the dojo. At first, I was happy if I could hit the bag a solid shot. The more I practiced, the higher I would try to bring my kicks. At this point I can land a spinning back kick at head level whenever I like. Not only that, but I can also land straight kicks, sidekicks and crescent kicks at that same head level. You see, by practicing for accuracy and flexibility, I improved all of my kicks. After achieving the proper height, I started practicing landing the kicks at that height but with full power. I can now knock the bag over with a spinning back kick on demand. The first time I achieved it, I kicked so hard I pulled my hamstring. I kept practicing anyway, and I am proud to say I can knock it over without hurting myself at all. It was around that time that Shihan told me that Hanshi could knock that same bag over with a punch. For those of you who don't know Hanshi Larry Sullivan, he is 62 years old and is in terrific shape. Hanshi means highest rank, and this man deserves the title and all of the respect it entails. In my opinion. Hanshi is in better shape than anyone who takes his classes. He has professional fighters that he trains that cannot beat him in a match. But I digress, when I heard that he could do that, I wanted to be able to do it too. This is a large heavy bag folks, and most people cannot knock it over with a kick, let alone a punch. Well, I started to punch the bag as hard as I could. At first, I could only make the bag tilt, but not fall over. I kept trying though, and eventually I got it! I have knocked it over with a single punch on three occasions now. I still can't knock it over every time I punch it yet, but I eventually want to be able to do it at will. Although none of these goals will ever have a monetary reward for me, they do give me a deep sense of satisfaction. Looking ahead, I am now training to do better deep long-hold push ups. Usually, when I do push ups I do them quickly and do what amounts to either a half or two-third push up. They are quicker and easier when you are facing hundreds of push ups. Lately, Hanshi has been working us on deep. all the way push ups that we then hold for about 30 seconds. In other words, think of dropping downwards to do your push up, and then stop with your chest about 1 inch above the floor and then hold it there like that for 30 seconds. Let me tell you, those types of push ups are brutal! The other day, I made the mistake of mentioning that I hated those push ups. That is the quickest way, in my opinion, of saying that you need help with something. Hanshi was only happy to oblige, and now we are doing some of those types of push ups in many of the classes I go to. I am now up to doing six of those (after doing a full set of normal push ups). My goal is to get to where I can do a full set of 25 of that type of push up. Who cares that I am fifty! A couple of those deep push ups each night before bed will help me to achieve my goal. At this point, I am thinking I will be able to do it by Christmas. Yikes! At any rate, do not let your age be the deciding factor in what you do or do not want to do. If it is not impossible, you can achieve it, if you want it bad enough and you are willing to work towards doing it every day. You are only here once, folks. Make the most of it! "“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.” That's a quote by Lionel Shriver. Believe it or not, Lionel is a woman. She was a tomboy when she was younger and decided to change her name from Margaret to Lionel because she thought the more masculine name was more fitting for her.
Not much for me to say about Lionel, I have never read any of her material and I didn't know she existed until I read her quote. I liked the quote, though, and it got me thinking. I get hung up sometimes... not so much about what I can't have, but what might have been...which I guess IS the same thing after all. A lot of times, I will be sitting around working or listening to music, and something will inevitably remind me of my wife. A memory will be triggered and I will feel a deep well of sadness as I think of the good times we had at one time or another, and then I miss her. At those times, I fail to remember the problems we had and how her illness impacted the entire family. It's the second part of the quote that really got me to thinking tonight. I heard a song and thought of my wife and really missed her. Then I read the quote and I thought "if my wife was still alive, would I be having those feelings right now?" And to be honest, the answer was no. Not because I didn't love my wife, or because I no longer love her, but because before my wife died, I had divorced her to protect my daughters. My wife's alcoholism was out of control (it ended up killing her) and she could not be around my children without another adult present. I brought my youngest daughter, Ashleigh, home from the hospital when she was four days old, and I have raised her on my own until my Mom came to live with us in 2013. My wife spent some of that time in and out of rehab facilities, but mainly was out on her own drinking. Don't get me wrong, my wife loved our daughters. She was just not physically or mentally able to stop her addiction until it eventually took her life. She died of esophageal varices. Scarring, or cirrhosis of the liver is the most common cause of esophageal varices. This scarring cuts down on blood flowing through the liver. As a result, more blood flows through the veins of the esophagus. The extra blood flow causes the veins in the esophagus to balloon outward. Heavy bleeding can occur if the veins break open. Well, Sharon's veins broke open on at least two occasions. The second one that I know of killed her. Sharon already had a damaged liver when we met in 1999. She died in 2013. Ashleigh was born in January, 2010. Sharon's descent into oblivion really rolled into place in 2009, soon after she had become pregnant with Ashleigh. She couldn't stop drinking during the pregnancy. Although this likely sounds hollow, I did not know the extent of Sharon's drinking and its impact on her until she was already pregnant with Ashleigh. I knew she had still been drinking before we decided to have a second child, but she believed that the pregnancy would force her to quit again, as she did when she was pregnant with Madison. Unfortunately, this time she couldn't do it. To protect the baby, we put Sharon into an in-house rehab program at Phoenix House in Keene while she was pregnant to help keep her sober during her pregnancy. She completed the program, but started drinking immediately after she came out of the program, about two weeks prior to when she was to give birth to Ashleigh. She got drunk and broke her ankle on the first night she was home from the rehab. She had gotten the booze in Keene prior to me picking her up at the rehab facility. When we got home, I never thought to look in her bag she had brought from the facility since I picked her up from the facility, and brought her directly home. My daughter was born two weeks premature and with alcohol withdrawal. They sent me home with her at four days old. She was underweight, and needed to be fed every half an hour for the first two weeks of her life. Somehow, I did it while looking for a nanny to help me with the baby, while also taking care of Madison who was eight, and still somehow doing some work for my business. I literally had no sleep for the first four days. On day four, one of the travelling nurses who visited me to make sure the baby was doing okay, called me back that afternoon and offered to watch the girls for me in my house, while I caught some sleep. She came over, and I slept for eight hours. To this day, I still believe that angels sometimes walk among us, and come to help us in our hour of need. Soon after, I hired a nanny and things improved a little bit. For the next three years, my daughters and I struggled with Sharon's illness, I don't want to go into what we all went through. (By all I include Sharon, because she was suffering as well. She was ill, and she was missing her little girls. The emptiness only added to the stresses that triggered her drinking.) Looking back now, it seems like our days were filled with policemen, ambulances, hospitals, lawyers, doctor's visits, court visits, and of course, drunken interludes by Sharon. To this day, when an ambulance passes us in either Rindge or Jaffrey Maddie and I look at each other. When Sharon was alive, we looked at each other because we wondered if it was Mom being brought to the hospital again (oftentimes, it was). Now, we just look at each other just to silently say we remember. I can no longer see an ambulance without thinking of my wife... even though she has now been dead for three years. So anyway, what about the quote? When the song played tonight, and I thought about my wife, I realize that she is dead and can't come back. I recognize that, yet I still remember our good memories. The bad ones I mentioned above, I try not to think of any more. Yet soon after those good memories hit, I read the above quote and I thought: "If Sharon could come back, just the way she was, would you want her to come back?" And my answer to myself was no, I wouldn't. Because although I have a tendency to remember our good times together, if I think deeper, I remember all of the unhealthy things that my daughters saw and experienced. And I would never want to expose them to that again! Ashleigh was very young then, and barely remembers her Mom. She did not understand any of the bad things that went on, and I'd like to keep it that way until she is older, and inevitably asks me about her Mom. Maddie does remember, though, and I never want to expose her to anything so tragic and psychologically damaging again. To wit, be careful what you sometimes long for, because not everything you might want or miss is good for you or your loved ones around you. Sorry for the long, weird post... But it's what was going through my mind tonight, and sometimes I need to think out an explanation for myself. "Accept no one's definition of your life; Define yourself." That's a quote by Harvey Fierstein. So who is Harvey Fierstein? Glad you asked! Harvey is a Tony Award winning actor, best known for his work in Hairspray and Torch Song Trilogy. I have seen neither, to be honest, but that is who he is.
Harvey has a hell of a quote here though, and I wish that both of my daughters will follow his advice. To be happy, you truly must live for yourself and do what you believe will make you happy. While money isn't everything, recognize that it helps to have some money, so try and find something that will make you happy, while still giving you the ability to bring home the bacon... or at a minimum some ham and eggs. No matter how you decide to define yourself, if you work hard, you should be able to reach your goals. Remember, the best paths are not always straight and narrow. Sometimes you may have to leave the well-worn path and strike out on your own in a new direction. Do this, but have an idea of where you want to go beforehand. When I started my own business, I knew I wanted to work from home and spend more time with my children. I created a business that achieved my goals, while also allowing me to do what I loved to do. After my wife and I separated due to her illness, my business could no longer survive in its current form since I had to little girls to raise on my own... one of them being a baby. Something had to change. Slowly I changed things in my life to allow me to continue to follow my path. I struggled for many years as I brought in nannies to help me to raise the children and did what I could to help Sharon fight her addictions and get on with her life. My solutions were not enough, though, and my situation remained untenable. After letting the nannies go, I spent about a year with no income coming in, while I took care of my daughters and looked for solutions. My Mom came to live with us in 2013 after my father died, and her help was enough to allow me to regain a client. All of the work was "in-house" however, and I could not use those reports to gain new clients. I was between a rock and a hard place. The money coming in was enough to pay the bills, but was not enough to rebuild the business. After a year and a half of living off of retirement savings, I needed the income to keep afloat. My divorce was amicable, but costly and with the drain on my savings, I was not in a position to drop the client who was supplying me with the in-house work, and look for clients where my reports were marketable for all. Finally, in 2014, I decided to put my business on hold and go back to corporate work. Although I no longer run my own business, I still work from home daily, and I can still raise my girls and home school them during the day. In the end, is it your work that defines you? Or something else in your life? For me, it is something else. When people ask me now, I tell them I am an analyst, or a writer, for I am both. At the same time I am a teacher and a Father, and a Sensei. Hopefully, I am also a good friend to some, a good brother and a good son to others. For my daughters, I know I am a good Father. And in the end, THAT is how I define myself. Congratulations are in order for my daughter Madison. She fought in the USA Karate Grand Masters Tournament this weekend in Rindge, New Hampshire, and walked away as the 2015 Black Belt sparring champion for the co-ed youth Division (13 - 17 years old). She won her final match 5 points to 4 in a hard-fought battle to the finish. To win, she had to beat a seventeen year old boy who was undefeated for the entire tournament season. In fact, he had already beaten Maddie at least twice in other tournaments.
Needless to say, I am very proud of my daughter. Early in the match, her opponent jumped out to a two nothing lead. In black belt tournament sparring, a competitor can win a match by scoring three unanswered points, so the third clash was critical for Maddie. She quickly scored a point to her opponents stomach to force the match to a regulation five-point finish. Although I am happy that Maddie won, I am really proud of the guts and determination she showed. It takes a lot of guts to get up in front of people and perform. In this regard, all of the competitors on Sunday showed tremendous courage. Win, lose or draw, you are putting yourself up in front of a gym full of people and trying to do your best...knowing that you WILL be judged. Sometimes, the harshest critic isn't the three judges sitting in front of you... it is the little voice inside your head that tells you your best might not be good enough. No matter how tough your competition, the hardest fight can be with yourself. All of the competitors fought past their toughest critic on Sunday. I watched a number of matches on Sunday as a spectator. And I can tell you, I saw no losers there. Everyone who competed, no matter where they placed, were victors. They fought past the little voices in their heads that say I can't...and they proved that they could. At our USA Karate dojos we have five rules. They are:
This was particularly true after the sparring matches, particularly in the adult divisions where the exchanges were heated. Fierce competitors in the ring, once the final point was called in the match you would see them hug and congratulate each other...as it should be. I am very proud to be associated with USA Karate and the martial artists who train there. I am also happy and proud that my daughters are training at the dojo with me. My daughters both started training at the age of three. Originally, I took Maddie to classes so she could learn to protect herself. I soon came to realize that training in the martial arts is a way of life. So many of life's lessons can be learned at the dojo and carried over into our everyday lives. Effort, etiquette, sincerity, character and self control only touch on the surface of what my daughters learn at the dojo. Courage, self confidence, a healthy lifestyle, friendship, trust, the wisdom of peace over power... So many lessons, and yet I have barely touched the surface. My daughter's victory on Sunday was hard won and well earned. I am extremely happy for her and very proud of her. Yet every day that she goes to the dojo to train, she receives things that are more valuable than the trophy. The trophy symbolizes the hard work that she has done for eleven years to reach where she is today. The weekly visits to the dojo and the lessons she has been taught there are what put her in the position to win the trophy in the first place. In the end, karate is more about living than fighting. We initially go to the dojo to learn how to defend ourselves. We come out learning more about ourselves, and how to live a better, more meaningful life. "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." That was a quote by Mahatma Gandhi. It is so simple, that you almost want to dismiss it the moment you read it. And yet, Gandhi lived it! The change he was looking for didn't take a moment to occur, it took his whole lifetime and then some. While his quote is simple, it is also truthful. Change usually doesn't happen on its own. It needs some sort of catalyst. If you want change, then there needs to be a catalyst. A single raindrop cannot carve out a limestone cavern. Yet over thousands of years and billions of raindrops, huge caverns can be formed. Although I doubt Gandhi was talking about physical phenomena, the same types of processes are needed in human interactions. If you are not happy with the state of the world today, then you need to take steps to change it. And change occurs only one person at a time. Most people do not have the vision of Gandhi, nor the drive to try and accomplish a goal that will impact an entire country. And yet we all have visions on how the world should be and in particular, how we ourselves interact with the world. On an individual level, we can all make changes that will impact our lives. For example, if you want to weigh less, then eat less junk and exercise more. If you wish to write a book, then make sure to write a little bit each day. Don't ever expect something to happen without a catalyst. Here's another good example. Did you ever meet someone who says they want to meet new people, and yet never varies their schedule? That is me to a "T"! I work from home and only venture out to go to karate. How am I ever going to meet somebody new if I never vary my schedule? Thankfully, meeting somebody new doesn't rank very high on my things to do list. Most of what I want to do involves things around my house or on the internet. Anyway, those are just some examples of why you need catalysts to change anything in your life. What change do I want in my life? I'd like to crank out 2,500 push ups on my birthday in February, and I'd like to weigh in at 200 pounds even. At 200 I would be 25 pounds less than what I weighed in college. Meanwhile 2,500 push ups would equal 50 push ups for each year I have been alive. Hey, not everybody wants to change the world! To accomplish my goals, I need to lose weight and practice my push ups. While I have started on the diet end of things, I still rarely do more than 100 push ups a day. That will not get e to where I want to go in February! To achieve my goal, I will have to change my ways. So will I be the change I want to see in the world? No. But I will achieve a goal that I think is important. When I was younger, I never would have even imagined that I would be thinking of doing 2,500 push ups on my fiftieth birthday. Now, I am not only thinking about it, I am training for it. Be the change that you want to see. "The body achieves what the mind believes." is a bastardized quote from Napoleon Hill. If you don't know him, you should. Napoleon was the author of Think And Grow Rich, one of the best-selling self-help books of all time. In a nutshell, Hill believed in the Golden rule...treat others as you yourself want to be treated. He also believed in a philosophy of achievement. The above quote falls into that belief.
Although it is a short quote, there is a lot of truth in it. If you truly believe that you can achieve something, you will find a way to do it. Be careful, though, this works with both positive and negative thoughts. My wife always said she would be dead by the time she was thirty eight. Six days after her thirty-eighth birthday, she was dead. On a positive note, no matter how bad things got, I always felt I would pull out of my troubles before going bankrupt and return to making good cash. I have to admit, I came really close to going belly up. Every time that I thought I was going under though, something would come along to keep me going. An unexpected windfall, a new client, a job offer. If you want something in your life, believe that you are going to get it. Then make a plan on how you are going to get it. Finally, follow your plan! Take small steps each day to further yourself along the path to your goal. The more you believe, and the more action you take, the quicker you will achieve it. Remember, nothing comes for free. Believe it, plan for it and then work towards it. You will achieve it! Remember, this works for things that impact you only. You can't say I am going to marry that woman (who also happens to be happily married), and actually expect to achieve it. The other person also has free will and their plans and actions would have to be in line with yours to achieve that one. Aside from that, pick realistic goals, and then take the steps to achieve them. I know I must sound like a broken record, but this is one of the most important lessons you can learn. Have a firm belief in yourself and your actions and you will succeed at whatever you put your mind to. "Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected." That little gem was said by Steve Jobs. And he is right. There is a reason that Apple products are so highly regarded. That's because their products are innovative and useful to the consumer...unlike some of the stuff that is for sale out there.
I don't know if its me, but I just don't see quality work any more. A lot of the products on the market today, no matter which product category you look at, seem to be junk. The last three air conditioners I have bought have lasted about two years. None of them worked very well to begin with, and then they just ended up dying. The brands were General Electric and Haier. Granted I gave Haier a try twice since one of them I suspected may have gotten hit by lightning. Still even before they broke, all three of them would have to be shut down at some point due to ice building up on the coils. Okay, so no luck with air conditioners, so what. What bout vacuums. I have hardwood floors throughout my house, so vacuums really don't get a hard workout on the four throw rugs I have. Even so, we go through about one vacuum a year and about five belts for each of them. When I was younger, vacuums worked for ever. We had one for about fifteen years when I was a kid. Now, it's one year tops! Well, maybe I am the only one having a bad time with appliances. So what about food and household products? Has anyone noticed that prices for common food stuffs have skyrocketed in price since we were kids? And when the prices don't go up, the size of the packages get smaller. A perfect example is found in pretzels. Pretzels haven't changed at all in fifty years. Yet the box that cost me $0.50 when I was a kid now cost me $1.39. They are the same pretzels... no improvements. The same size package...yet the price has more than doubled. This is not really a quality problem. At least not with the pretzels. The problem here is with the quality of our currency. The U.S. government (the Federal Reserve actually) has depreciated the dollar so much that prices have risen just to cover the depreciation in our currency. It is disgusting and it needs to stop! But this is a topic for a different blog post entirely. To get back to the quote at the top of the page, I think everyone needs to focus and make their LIVES the yardstick of quality. Do this by making sure that everything you do is done to the best of your abilities. So many people cut corners in their lives and then wonder why they are unhappy. We all have inner pictures of how we are. The more we cheat and take the easy way out, the more our inner picture gets distorted. It must be hard to hold a good self image of yourself if you are constantly lying. It must be hard to picture yourself as a success if you are constantly cutting corners or just saying something is good enough, even though you know in your heart that the job wasn't done properly. Words and thoughts have power. The more you give yourself the opportunity to look down on yourself, the harder it will be to build your self esteem. No one can do this for you. I can tell my daughters I think they are great everyday, but as long as they are doing things that lower their own self worth, they will never benefit from my praise. AND if I praise them about something I know is not true, then I can't honestly build my own self esteem either. I try to encourage my daughters every day. But I will not encourage them about something that isn't true. I might find something else to encourage them about, but I won't encourage them about something that isn't true. In the end, it is up to all of us to deliver quality in our own lives. No matter what I give my daughters, I can't build their self esteem. They have to do that on their own. Only they know how hard they worked on anything or how well something they did really is. To grow, they need to deliver quality. And so do I, if I want to grow as a person. Tonight, think of something you can do tomorrow where you can deliver real quality. When tomorrow comes do it! And do it to the best of your ability. After completing the task, see if you don't feel better about yourself. I know I will! "If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me." I made those beautiful words by Led Zeppelin part of my wedding vow to Sharon. I meant them when I said them. And yet, before my wife passed away, I had divorced her. Did this mean I didn't love her? At first Sharon thought so (although this wasn't the case). Soon after we separated, and were in the process of getting a divorce she wrote a poem where she stated: "Promises, Promises, The vows, the lies you made, Before God you once stood, But now, the black and white fade" We got the divorce to protect the children. I still loved Sharon, but her behavior was starting to have an impact on Maddie and her blackouts and drinking to the point of unconsciousness was a very real danger for Ashleigh. But I digress, I wanted to write about my vow and how my actions did not break those sentiments. To start, love has no boundaries. You do not need to be right next to someone to love them. Whether a person's next to me, or across the country, I still have the ability to love them. Whether someone lives with me...or not, I can love them.
Although mountains have not crumbled to the sea, there is still she and me. I see her in my daughters every day as they go about their lives. I hear her when they speak to me. There is a little part of each of us in both of our daughters. Although Sharon has died, there will always be a part of her that lives on, through our children and theirs and so on until our bloodline ends. Will it be until mountains crumble to the sea? I hope so. The vow that bothers me... the one I may have inadvertently broke, is the whole in sickness and in health thing. I have thought about this a lot over the past couple of years. On the surface, it would seem that I broke this part of my vow... to stay with Sharon through sickness and in health. Like an iceberg, though, there is more to this vow than just what you see on the surface. By having children together, Sharon and I took on the responsibility to raise our children and keep them safe. When Sharon got too sick (addicted), and became a danger to our children, we still had our joint responsibility to keep our children safe. Since Sharon could no longer do that, the responsibility fell to me to do what was right for the both of us so that we could fulfill our responsibilities. I believe I have done that, and will continue to do that, as I promised my wife. Sometimes life leaves us no "good" choices. In those instances, we need to pick the choice that will do the most good, and not just the choice that is most convenient, or easy for us. "If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me." I meant it when I said it Babe, and it still holds true now. Rest in peace. |
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