My word for this year is LEARN.
So it just makes sense to use this Year of Sundays to reflect on 52 of my most significant Life Lessons. Some may seem more significant than others, but each one has changed how I live my life in powerful way. I’d love to hear if and how any of these same lessons have surfaced in the classroom of Your Life.
Grief can be powerful, but love is ALL powerful.
I’ve written about my dad before. He rocked. He still rocks, in my heart. The 30th anniversary of his passing is a few weeks away. 30 years! To borrow a phrase from last year ~ wOw!
Years ago, my sister and I were swapping stories about the advice Daddy gave us when we left home. He told Mari, “Always look people in the eye. Always have a firm handshake. And ladies drink rum and Coke.” He told me, “Always listen to God more than you talk to him.” We weren’t sure whether the difference said more about how he saw us or where he was at the time of the advice.
Anyhoo – back to grief. I was looking though my dad’s 1929 Book of Common Prayer for a reason I now can’t remember. What I found was a four page essay, handwritten by Daddy, titled, “How I Pray.” I chuckled. He always could and obviously still can get my attention with the softest sledgehammer. Then I had The Best cry. That deep-from-the-gut-crusty-eye-snot-dripping-to the top-of-my-mouth kinda cry.
It’s been years since I cried about my dad. It felt good. It felt healing. It felt holy. I felt loved. I felt like Daddy was right there with me ~because he was and is and will be.
Your turn…
Lisa’s Cheap Therapy blog 
I hope you had lots of tissues handy! 🙂 It is wonderful to know that even after all these years they can sneak up and tap your heart and give you exactly what you need. Which in my grief over Jimmy Regan and Mr Wooliever I felt they both gave me a tap at work this weekand wrote my plan for a client of mine who had terninal cancer who has such a positive outlook and her plans in place and the comfort of GOD
Wow! If I didn’t know that you had already written this before you saw my book, I would be positive that you wrote it last night. With God, there are no coincidences. Thanks for being special you.
As I’ve said many times, God gives us memories so those we love are never gone from our hearts. Your dad is so obviously still with you. I see it constantly.
Now we wait with baited breath to learn the your dad’s insights about prayer.
Boy- this is an amazing year, dear friend. While working on a new spiritual autobiography (not for EFM) emotion was unleashed while reflecting on my first five years!
When the fog lifts it is not just Avalon we find!
Peace,
Carrie
I so envy your ability to cry like that. Deep inside me is planted the belief that I shouldn’t cry. I think I did a few times when I was drunk, but that doesn’t really count.
This April, Daddy will have been gone four years. Sometimes it feels like 40 years….sometimes 4 days. He taps me on the shoulder often – particularly here at the office when I run across old files with his handwriting, company records initialed by him, etc. I have his London Fog at home in my closet, right beside my bathrobes. When I need an especially good hug, I put on his raincoat and wrap my arms around myself. I close my eyes and imagine his big, strong, capable, loving arms wound around me and let go with a big ‘ol sobfest. Those tears are so therapeutic!
ah…Grief and Lessons. I’m currently grieving my Dad, gone a little over a year after 10 years of decline following a devastating stroke. I’ve mourned Daddy now for 11 years. He was 87 when he died. I’m also grieving my daughter. 26 years young and beautiful. Leukemia thinks it won, but it didn’t. The leukemia that ravished her is gone forever and she is perfect and whole and beautiful, only now she has pink angel wings! I see each of them in different things, every day. I hope to continue to learn from them every day
Lisa, thanks for sharing your thoughts and helping us all think about and feel our own grief. While many wish to hide from grief, it has to be felt before we can get past it ( in my humble opinion). That said, I don’t believe anyone ever gets over grief…… I believe we just learn to deal with it and assimilate into “our new normal” post loss.
When my grandfather died over 37 years, I gave my grandmother a card that read, “To live in the hearts of those we leave behind, is to live forever”. I was only 14 when he died and I gave her that card, but the thought has always stayed with me.
To that vein, while remembering those who have gone ahead of me is sometimes hard and causes me to cry oceans, I am grateful to have known them and had them in my life.
It doesn’t change the fact that understanding why people have to suffer and why people die young is beyond my comprehension. But I have learned to accept tears as ‘taps’ too!
And Shelley, yes your daughter is rocking some pretty pink wings!!!!! I just know it!!!!
Marina, yep, those holy taps make all the difference in this life;
Jean, we were both clearly feeling The Daddy vibes last week. LOVE it!;
Tom, as i’ve told you so many times, if i have a regret in This Life, it’s that you and Daddy didn’t meet. grateFULL you feel you know him anyway…;
Gary, aw shux….i’m not the kinda gal who shares love letters;
Carrie, to borrow a phrase from last year – wOw!;
Amma/Robin, i cry at least once a day. would probably explode if i didn’t;
Pickett, i’m still smiling at the imagining of you wrapped-up in your dear daddy’s coat/arms;
Shelley, what a wonderful shift in perception about who/what ‘wins’. i am forever changed by that as i celebrate your dear dad and daughter with and for you;
Judi, may we all be open to those holy taps as we live into our new normal(s);
THANKS to you all for sharing here! THANKS, too, to all who shared more privately. This experience of swapping lessons with ya’ll is rich beyond words…