Love and Faith, You can't see it but, you can feel it's there.

Week #3 

     There is always something to ponder from day to day.  After reading the first two chapters of The Sacred Art of Dying, How world religions understand death by Kenneth Kramer, it makes you look at your life and wonder if you lived life to the fullest. When it's time to be judged will you be able to walk through those pearly gates? 

     It seems that by the time you figure out what life is all about it will have passed you by.  Everyone knows about karma, what goes around comes around, but does karma always have to be a bitch?  If we try to live and treat others as we would want to be treated maybe then there could be some sort of "peace" and karma would be sought out rather than fearing what it just might throw at you.  Let's face it when you see something that isn't so nice happen to someone who "deserves" it we give that crooked smile and think, yup ain't karma a bitch.  

     When you are young life feels like it will go on forever.  As you get older and in some cases, wiser, you realize it feels like just yesterday you were in high school hanging out at the mall on a Saturday night with your friends. Let's not forget we knew everything, after all we were 18 years old.  Your parents only did things to ruin your life, that's what you think until the day you become a parent and all that changes.  

     I would often hear simple advise such as, make good choices.  I didn't realize that the "choices" that were being spoken of was more than what to have for lunch, should I get the blue one or the red one.  You find yourself, or at least I do, saying if I had only listened to my mother. That is a lesson that you realize all to late in life.  I became pregnant at 16 years old and gave birth to a beautiful daughter in 1987.  I thought her dad would be around forever.  My mom on the other hand knew better, advising me to give her my last name and not his.  I was mature and stated, no matter what happens he will always be her dad. I never thought he would leave us.  

     I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and him leaving was no exception.  God never gives us more than we can handle.  At 17 years old I felt like life was over, I couldn't do this alone.  Family is a powerful thing and they helped me through it.  

     Two years later my life took a huge turn for the better, I was 19 years old, and met the boy who would later become my husband.  Every day since has only gotten better.  I learned a great deal about love from his family, especially his grandparents who treated me like one of the family from the first time I met them.  I thought they would be around forever, ignorance is such a wonderful thing. 

      I often talked to Grandma about things that matter, she had such  strong spiritual faith.  She spoke of her death like it was part of everyday life and I'm not going to lie it was a little, no a lot, unsettling to me.  I would tell her not to talk like that.  She would often try to give me a necklace that she wore everyday, she wanted me to have it.  I told her I would't take it until the time came that she no longer was wearing it.  

     She was so amazing and taught me about planning for a future.  Retirement, if planned for would be such a wonderful time.  Pray for your health and enjoy everyday.  She would talk to me about how lucky she felt to have me in her life.  She would say things like,  I know that I can truly count on you and my first born grandson to take care of me when I need it.  She involved us (me and my husband)  in the preparation of her will and her living will letting us know what her wishes were.  

     I'll never forget the day she passed away and went to a better place.  We went downstairs to her apartment to find all the official documentation for her "afterlife" arrangements.  She wrote a letter to my husband letting him know her final wishes.  We cried that day and many days later.  Looking back I think of her funeral as the easiest hardest thing we ever had to do because she spelt it all out for us.  She listed songs she wanted played and who the pallbearers would be.  We laugh now thinking that it was just like Grandma to always be in control.  She always made us smile, even when she was no longer physically with us.  

     Live today and everyday like its your last, without regrets.  If you do that, when the time comes for your completed journey on this earth it may surprise how much easier it will be to accept it.  The fear of death is not what scares me, it's the thought of suffering.