Friday, August 30, 2013
Sail Away to the Beach!
This past week was busy and stressful, too much work to do and not enough time. Many deadlines are looming on the horizon.
On Thursday
as I was sitting at my desk, I began to drag a little rake through the sand of
my desk Zen garden. And for a few moments I was transported back to beach.
What is it about a beach that we find so tranquil and mesmerizing?
I love the beach. I love the crisp, tart, salty, air. I love
the freedom in the wind. Huge waves roaring into crests from far away, crashing,
and then turning into pure white foam.
There is nothing like going into the ocean and feeling
the gravity pull, awaiting the perfect wave and riding the wave completely into the shore.
And the soothing sounds of the ocean waves as you sit on
the shoreline and contemplate life.
This past summer while at Oceanside Beach, I had a
thought of how so much of life has changed. We run our cars at top speeds,
going from place to place. Hurriedly eating and rushing to the next activity.
We get to the end of our days and we wonder why we cannot quiet our minds for
sleep. And yet the ocean has remained the same. The constancy of waves coming
in and resting on the sands and then the pull of the earth calling it back out into
the depths of the water, the rhythm of life.
There is a natural rhythm to life. We are born, we grow,
we are educated, we live, we grow older, we achieve, and we die.
Embracing the rhythm of life, discovering our talents and
pursuing our passions helps us to live authentic lives.
And in the great words of Mark Twain - “Twenty years from
now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones
you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch
the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Friday, August 23, 2013
August 23, 2013 - Life Can Change In A Moment!
Life Can Change In A Moment
Many times
in life I have thought how quickly life can change. We can go along living and
at times it seems like everything is mundane. Day in and day out the same tasks
seem to drag on forever and then in a moment life is different.
My life
changed dramatically when I lost a beloved teacher while in high school, never
being able to express the gratitude that I felt for her was a deep regret. One
moment she was teaching and assigning projects and the next day we had heard that
a car accident claimed her life. We were all changed. The experience taught me
at a young age to express yourself for you never know when your last moment may
be.
After
college in my twenties I was hired by 9 major airlines, I chose to fly for
United Airlines as a Flight Attendant and I moved to Chicago. My life became a
series of change, due to constantly going and coming. For a while it became so
crazy that I didn’t know where I was or what time it was due to flying so much.
I remember clinging to moments of normalcy. I cherished days off to do laundry,
visit friends, cook dinner to do normal everyday things.
One late
afternoon in September, 25 years ago, the plane I was working on hit an air
pocket and had a depressurization, in that moment my life changed forever, as
the plane dropped 1500 feet, I hit my neck and my back. To this day I still
live with this injury.
We have
many moments in our lives of great happiness, of awaited news, of sadness and
of change.
I recently
lost my best friend of 30 years. Carla died May 14, 2014 in Tucson. She had
estranged herself from family and friends for the past two years, as she
struggled alone with her illness. When I received a call from her daughter,
Jessica, on the 11th of May, I immediately went to Tucson to see
Carla. She had been in a coma for over 2 weeks and was on life support. It was
horrifying to see my best friend so gravely ill.
Carla and
I became friends when we were 15 years old; we met at our first job at a
department store. Although vastly different we became immediate friends. Carla
was 5’2” and Native American – Navajo and Pima, she called herself a Pimajo! I
am 5’8” and due to my heritage I am very white, her family used to call me
their Albino child.
One of the greatest things
about Carla was she loved to laugh. I have never laughed as hard and as long as
I did with my best friend. The way she looked at life and lived it – always questing
for the best, adding ‘color’ to everything that she did. A bench did not stay a
bench long, for it was soon painted to look like a cow. A chair needs glitz,
gems, bow to be ‘jazzed up’! Oh how I miss her…
We had been friends through
our teens, twenties, thirties and forties; this was a person that knew your
moments. Moments of greatness, sadness, happiness, loneliness, celebrations –
all the moments of our life; graduations, boyfriends, new jobs, travels,
marriage, late night conversations, babies, children’s birthdays, loss of
relatives and divorce.
In July 2005, Carla’s mother
was going to visit family in the northern part of Arizona, Ganado, and Navajo
Reservation. Her mother, Karletta was traveling with her best friend. In a
moment, life changed tragically. Karletta’s best friend was driving, she ran a
stop sign while exiting the freeway near Holbrook, and was struck by an oncoming
truck. The vehicle was thrown and rolled 4 times due to the impact. Karletta
was killed instantly in the accident.
Carla called me hysterically
crying, I was on the road traveling home. As soon as I arrived back to the
valley we began the journey from Scottsdale to Holbrook to identify her mother’s
body. Life had changed and would never be the same. I began to lose my friend
that day. Carla began to seek pain management for many ‘illnesses’ and
eventually left her employment to sleep away her days. No amount of consolation
helped. She eventually pulled away from all family; her children, her father,
her brother, myself; life was just too much for her.
So when I received the call
from Jessica, Carla’s daughter, that her mother had been in the hospital for
over 2 weeks and they had just been notified. I immediately drove to Tucson. Seeing
my dear friend so ill and just a shell of life was one of the most horrifying
moments of my life. I talked with Carla, thanked her, apologized for not being
there for her in these ‘final moments’ and blessed her. I gently took her hand
in mine and prayed with her and for a brief moment there was a slight squeeze and
that was all. I told her I loved her and would always remember our times of deep
laughter. I thanked her for the gift of her friendship and will always cherish
it. And then I left.
The next day I had to go to
Pinetop to help my mother complete packing up my parents’ home for a move to
the valley. As I went out on the front deck to take a break and have a cup of
coffee, the breeze kicked up and a couple leaves floated by it was the winds of
change and I knew as the phone rang that Carla had passed on. In that moment a
part of life changed for me. I will always remember and miss my dear friend.
Cherish the moments. Life is
not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our
breath away. Author unknown
Celebrate the moments!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)