2.12.09

be thankful

I can't explain how angry I get whenever I hear or see or read something from someone who says:
"I hate my life."

Ugh.
UGH UGH UGH!

It just makes me want to scream, yell, punch something, throw something, break something, strangle something. How can people say something like that about life? How can people be so blind to how beautiful, how incredible, how absolutely amazing and astounding life is?

yes. Life is frustrating and hard and tough and stressful and scary and sometimes, it is just down right ridiculous. I do not disagree with that; in fact, I most whole-heartidly agree with all of that. I mean, my own life is frustrating and tough and it certainly has been scary and very much hard. This blog and my entries from the last year is proof of it.

But really. Life is such a gift. It is such a beautiful gift. And I despise those who say that they hate life. Does anyone realize how many beautiful people lose their lives unwillingly? Does anyone realize how realistic it is to wake up one morning and for someone to be gone? Doesn't anyone appreciate how fragile, and how delicate life is?

i have been delving into my life a few years ago, something that I have done very rarely in the past months in an act of protection of myself:


Meghan was 9 when I met her. nine years old. she loved her webkins and her stuffed animals and she loved to play on her computer.

Maddie was 8 when I met her. Eight years old, long brown hair and the best crooked smile. She was eight. She loved her dog, pink clothes and learning how to paint. She was learning how to paint and she was getting very good at it. She was eight.

Emily was 18 when I met her. She played cribbage in the resource room constantly and she had a great sense of humor.

I have outlived Emily almost two years now, i'll be twenty in March and she was 18 when she passed away. Meg passed away two years ago and I held Maddie's hand at her funeral services. Maddie passed away a year later. My beautiful friends who had no choice in whether they could live or die, my inspiration friends who fought every day to be able to have the opportunity to play outside one more time, to put a coat on and go outside in the cold, to go to school and to learn. They died and they didn't have a choice.
But every second they were alive, they taught me the beauty of life and how wonderful it really is. No matter what it throws at me, no matter what twists and turns I have need to go around, no matter what heartache or heartbreak I suffer, I know...i know that no matter what happens, life continues to be beautiful.

The other day I was having a bit of a hard afternoon. A friend of mine wrapped his arm around me in a gesture of comfort and for a moment, I had my ear pressed against his shoulder and in the few minutes of silence that we sat like that, I could hear his heart beating. It was a spin-chilling moment for me. I could hear someone being alive. Breathing, heart-beating alive. Hearing his heart beat brought me such peace and awe in a split second because I could hear the miracle of life.

sometimes i get caught up in the whirlwind of my life and forget to look at life the way that I should.

But I try my hardest to appreciate life, to learn to love what it gives me, good and bad. I have learned to take every small moment and to enjoy it to the fullest potential.
I am so lucky, so blessed to be alive and to see the sun rise every morning and watch it set every night. No matter what life throws at me, I could never hate it. If anything, I live and love my life for my friends who no longer can. I live and love life for them and for myself.

Maddie's mom posts frequently on her blog as she suffers through her despair and sorrow at losing her only daughter. But even Kristin can not be brought down into such depths of despair that she could hate her life. Maddie taught her better. Kristin posted a few days before Thanksgiving and as always, I was touched and moved to tears at the beautiful and inspiring words that she wrote.

I am forever thankful that I was chosen to be Maddie's Mom. So thankful God chose me. I am so thankful for the time we had with Maddie. Although it was way too short, I am so thankful for all she gave to me, all she taught me, for all we shared together. For everything she brought to this world, for everything she taught so many, through good times and bad. For the lessons she continues to teach, and of course, for our everlasting memories, I am forever thankful. There is always something to be thankful for, even in the midst of the most unbearable pain and sorrow...

No matter how hard life gets, it continues to be beautiful. Im thankful for my trials, I am thankful the beauty and I am so very thankful to be alive.

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