“Not what you have,
but what you use. Not what you see, but what you choose. Not what seems fair,
but what is true. Not what you dream, but what you do. Not what you take, but
what you give. Not as you pray, but as you live. These are the things that mar
or bless the sum of human happiness.”
I discovered this beautiful composition in the book, “How to
Love,” by Gordon Livingston. Sometimes words just jump off the page and into my
soul and these ones certainly did. I printed and framed the piece for my
bedroom wall. It smacks of that old familiar tune “To Thine Own Self Be True.”
This week I’m all about “Day 365” and as much as I’d thought
beginning a new year at midnight December 31st would mean a fresh
new start, I cannot deny that until I make it past Saturday, January 19th
I won’t truly feel that my new year has begun.
I’ve come to believe that making it to the anniversary date of
the first year after any major event in life is an occurrence of legendary
proportions and each of us comes to it in different ways. I also have come to
believe it is a sacred journey to its crest, no matter how it’s walked.
I’m not sure yet what I’m going to be doing on Saturday, but
the closer I get to it, the more I hope I am going to get up at sunrise and
live the day as fully as I can. I would be a fool to think that the events of
what happened here in my neck of the woods that day one year ago won’t be on my
mind. That’s okay. It’s all okay.
I continue to believe that each day I am where I am supposed
to be. This conviction carries me. It has carried me through the last 12
months. It carries me in this moment, and this moment is all that I truly know
I have in this life.
My friend Patty gave me a bereavement gift last January that I
can say without a shred of doubt remains the best gift I have ever received in
bad times and in good. It’s a fridge magnet that says “One Day at A Time.”
I’ve tried to live by that code ever since. It takes a lot of
the pressure off of projecting myself into tomorrow’s dilemmas and next week’s
problems and keeps me grounded right here.
I’ve also been reading the daybook, “The Language of Letting
Go,” by Melody Beattie. She’s my nightingale of freedom. There’s not a morning
that goes by when she doesn’t impress upon me a valuable lesson about giving up
control and the letting in of life as it unfolds before me. These are good
things and the good I need will find me when the time is right.
Since January 19, 2012 I have written over 45 columns for this
space and I’ve dug deep many times on what it means for me as a survivor left
behind by the suicide of a loved one. I wanted to pay forward the German
proverb that says, “To bury grief, plant a seed.” I’ve done the best I could.
On Saturday I’m going to think about the road I’ve walked and
I’m going to continue to do my best to honor my life, as good as it is, and it
is very good. Very good indeed.
In fact, I think I’ll go snowshoeing across one of my snowy
fields with my beavertail snowshoes that my dad gave me just before Christmas.
The snowshoes once belonged to a fantastic family friend and well- known
district auctioneer, the late Rod Salchert.
And as I’m walking along in the cold winter air with the
spirits of all the good people I’ve had in my life, I’m going to remember what
Melody Beattie said about letting go, and then I’m going to spend my evening
sitting by the fire with someone I care about very much.
"I think of letting go as being like throwing a baseball.
The problem is I just don't want to let go of the ball. Hanging on to the ball
is a temptation. We've got it in our hands. Why not keep it there? At least if
we are dwelling on the problem, it feels like we are doing something. But we're
not. We're just holding onto the ball, and chances are we are holding up the
game.”
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