I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day and the you have had an awesome week! Typing this Happy Friday on my iPad...please give me grace with typos.
On Sunday (November 10th) there was a great article in the Arizona Republic written by Laurie Roberts titled "A beacon of light, faith and love." Laurie wrote about an incredible woman named Susan Castaneda. In the beginning of the article Laurie described Susan this way: "Susan is on of those people you run into now and then, the sort who seems lit from within, as if a beacon were put there to show the rest of us the way - especially those of us who didn't even realize we had veered off course." The article had my attention.
Susan had been diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer in 2009. This however was not a sad article, an article of regret, missed opportunities, etc. No, it was something much different. Here is how Susan explained it to Laurie: "I look around me and I can see that even the smallest things, I can thank God for," she told me. "I just look at everything that I have that is good. Cancer's one bad thing, but I have 101 good things." Wow...
I now want to get out of the way and just share an excerpt from the article, to let Laurie and Susan speak to you. Taken directly from the article:
Over the last year, she lived with pain, the nausea and the weakness. But there was also a newfound appreciation for the blessings that become more evident when they're about to be taken away.
Big things, like family and friends. Little things, like the ability to get up and go to work, or to help out the young mother ahead of you in the grocery-store checkout line - the one who is pulling items out of her cart because she can't afford them.
"I wake up every day with the reminder that it could be my last day," Susan explained. "I'm going to live my life to the fullest. I'm doing what I want to do now, and I don't hesitate to help anybody who crosses my path that needs a helping hand. And it's not because I think it's going to get me closer to heaven. It's to make me feel good about life."
And so come the lessons that Susan offered as we sat in that basement cafeteria on a scorcher of a blessed Arizona afternoon - lessons we all know but so easily forget in our headlong rush to hurtle through our God-given days.
Tell the people that you love that you love them, every day, she told me.
Give something of yourself to someone else, every day, whether it's from your wallet or from your heart.
And remember, every day, that it could be your last.
"I think at some point we all need to say, 'Let's stop and re-evaluate how we look at life," she said. "I don't wish a terminal diagnosis on anybody. I really don't. But what I do wish is that people can take a look at life through a terminally ill person's eyes, because I bet you they'll just have a different perspective on life."
How is your perspective after reading that Friends? Mine is definitely changed. My heart, my spirit is speaking - no, make that screaming - to me. However I wasn't done getting lessons from someone with a terminal illness this week.
As I was driving to work this week a woman called into the radio station. She too had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Just like Susan she was incredibly happy, thankful - truly thankful - for each day she had been given. She said something I am pretty sure I will remember the rest of my life. Here is what she said:
"To many people you will cross paths with in life, you only live for one day. They will only know you from that one day your paths crossed. How will they remember your life?"
Pretty powerful stuff, huh? Tell them you love them every day, give something from your wallet or your heart every day, how will they remember your life? As Laurie said, "lessons we all know but so easily forget in our headlong rush to hurtle through our God-given days." You and I will choose today and then tomorrow and then tomorrow and then...
Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish your precious families.
Kev
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