Inspirational Sunday - The Brick

This is an email I recently received. The message is so important that I would be remiss in not passing it on.

The Brick

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked
cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door!

He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting,'What was that all about and who are you? Just what
the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?'

The young boy was apologetic. 'Please, mister...please, I'm sorry but I didn't
know what else to do,' He pleaded. 'I threw the brick because no one else would stop...'

With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. 'It's my brother, 'he said 'He rolled off the curb and fell
out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up.'

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.'

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took
out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay.

'Thank you and may God bless you,' the grateful child told the stranger. Too
shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy! push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home..

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to
remind him of this message:

'Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!'
God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts.
Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us.
It's our choice to listen or not.

Thought for the Day:
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring.
He sends you a sunrise every morning.
Face it, friend - He is crazy about you!

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain.
He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

Read this line very slowly and let it sink in...

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Please no more!

Yanno, I am really getting to be anti 9/11 - not the actual date but all the fuss with an incident that happened on that date. There were thousands of people lost, yes. BUT somehow life around you is so concentrated into this that all else stops. The news media are making this into a huge non-stop coverage every single year. One can't watch TV, even a football game without being consistently reminded of it. Frankly I wish they spent this much time on more important things.

What you say? Well, people died this week. People married this week. People were born this week. But instead every single time you turn on the TV, try to listen to a radio, or open a newspaper or read a magazine - all you hear about is 9/11. It's depressing. It isn't a memorial anymore but a continuous reporting of what happened one day on September 11th, 2001. To me the commemerations going on nullify anything else that happens that day. How do you think a child feels that happened to have the luck of being born on this day? How do you think a parent feels about losing a child on that same day?I lost a child on September 11, 1987. Have I shoved this info down your throat even though it meant a lot to me? No, I have not. Imagine how parents now have to explain the constant bombardment of news on this subject to children born before or after this date. Is it fair?

No, but it reminds me of how we view death now. Every time I drive down a road, there are markers, balloons, flowers, etc, marking the site where a car accident happened or someone died. Why do we feel the need to do this? I don't have an answer. I haven't. I have never forgotten Scott but I also don't dwell on his death either. I rejoice I had 9 months of holding and feeling him in utero and 3 months of seeing his eyes, hair, and caring for him. Scott was a gorgeous baby. So where did we go wrong in how we view death and incidents that have happened?

What about........
.....the thousands of people killed in this 'war' we have going on?
.....the thousands of people who are STILL MIA after the Vietnam War? No wonder veterans think we forget about what they do.

Who are the heroes in today's world? Not those who lost their lives fighting for our rights but those who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, I feel for them and their families but I feel for those who have fought for us and their families more. They are the ones that deserve all the attention.

Now for those of you doubters, yes I have feelings. I am a nurse. I was a 1st responder when Flight 232 went down in Chicago, IL on May 25, 1979. I had a friend who was on the American Eagle Flight 4184 went down in Indiana on October 31, 1994. My sister-in-law was supposed to flying that exact flight but was grounded because of a cold. My cousin was supposed to be a flight attendant on one of the flights that went into the Trade Centers. I worked for years with the Vietnam Vets at Hines. Men without legs. Men without arms. Those men were left without people who care for them. I still have 15 MIA bracelets of men who are presumed deceased. Their remains were never found. My father-in-law is out of his mind with PTSD and has to medicated so he doesn't kill his wife or anyone else because of what he went through in World War I when he was 1 of 8 surviving in the Battle of Anzio.

I realize what happened that day is very traumatic. But I also realize that people need to move on. But we can't. The media won't let us. I have smelled charred flesh. I have ridden ambulances when we had to use the shovel - bet no one knew an ambulance carries a shovel on it. But every single EMT knows why it is there.

But where and when do we commemorate those other things? What of the families who lost people this week? Doesn't anyone realize how depressing it all is? Why is this the ONLY story that ever is told over and over and over?

I know death. I have seen death. I have been there with the charred remains of Flight 232. I worked putting bodies in bags. It traumatized me forever and is forever burned in my brain. I had loved ones die in 9-11 also. I have seen people I know who were responders die here in my Chicago burb from what happened there. No one is ever the same whether it was there or any other traumatic event. But this type of coverage without the other is just not right. I have lost 2 children. I know death.

If the news media gave the same attention to any one of the planes that land every single day with caskets covered in flags, or gave the same attention to those people who are fighting for us right now on foreign soil but because they are part of the Reserves, they aren't considered a real part of the active military service with the same rights, or printed the names of those wounded sitting in nursing homes or hospitals or just walking the streets because they can't hold a job, I would change my tune in a heartbeat. However, I know too many guys my own age and my children's age and my parent's age that are never ever thought of. Their names are not on any wall. Their names are never in any newspaper. They are the forgotten. Those are the ones I commemorate.

Just for you sceptics who think this was the absolute worst disaster America has faced have never looked at these statistics:
# people who died in the Vietnam War (1965-1973) 58,177 American Deaths
# people who died in the Korean War (1950-1953) 36,568 American Deaths
# people who died in WWII (1941-1945) 405,399 American Deaths
# people who died in the Civil War (1861-1865) 618,222 American Deaths
# people who died in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) 32,324 American Deaths
# casualties in the Iraq War (2003-Oct 2010) 4426 American Deaths
# people who died in WWI (1917-1918) 116,516 American Deaths

But let's not stop there..............what about these:
# people who die from the flu or pneumonia each year? 65,313
# people who died in the crash of American Airlines Flight 191: 273
# people who died on American Airlines Flight 587: 265
# people who died in American Eagle Flight 4184: 68
# people who die from heart disease each year: 936,923
# people who die from cancer each year: 553,091
# people who die from diabetes mellitus: 69,301
# people who die from firearms: 28,663
# people who die from motor vehicle accidents 43,354
# people who die from renal failure 36,471
# people who die from septicemia 31,224
# people who die with AIDS in 2009: 1.8 million
# people who die from chronic lower respiratory disease 122,009
# people who died from the Galveston Hurricane of 1900: 12,000
# people who died from 1906 San Francisco Earthquake: 6000

Now the # people who died in 9-11? 2,973

Kinda makes it seem small in relationship to those other numbers? Why aren't there commemorations? Why isn't the media all over those numbers?

I commemorate the above picture. I applaud every single soldier currently fighting or serving our country and those who have before them. That is what we should be reading about. Not about one blip on the big screen of life.

Inspirational Sunday - Moments

I love that saying - We do not remember days, we remember moments. I am in a remembering stage today and have been all week. No, it is not because of 9-11. I actually think the hype of 9-11 is a bit much and way overkill. While every one's minds were concentrated on this, life was actually being lived. Life did not stop. We all went to work. People were born. People married. People had bachelorette parties. People died. That is more important to me than remembering where I was the morning of 9-11. I am sure much more happened that day but that.

A very good friend of mine died this week. Her illness was very sudden and as her son said at her funeral mass yesterday: The doctors said she had one in a million chance of getting this nasty disease (CJD). Her son went on to regale us with some memories of his mom. Some were really funny and some were thought provoking. The pastor went on in his sermon to talk about the moments of our own lives.

As I look back over the 57 years I have lived, I realize that I don't always remember the details of an entire day, but flashes of moments sealed in my brain. All week I have done that with my relationship with my friend - from the first moment we met till the last moment we talked to the last moment I saw her body in the casket.

But those moments that kept flashing through my mind this week were powerful moments. They were those moments that made such an impression on me that while some details were lost, that memory was firmly imprinted in my mind. Sometimes I wish I had recorded what happened, how I felt, and what lesson I learned. But then I would not have been living life in the moment.

So what is your big moment? How will you remember friends, loved ones, your life? What have you done that you have found significant enough to remember?

I don't know about you but when I remember moments of my life with my friend, it is like I am being transported right back to that time. I remember how sometimes she pissed me off so much I wondered why we were even friends. I remember how she was right by my side during some of my happiest moments and some of the worst moments in my life. She was indeed a person who was 'one in a million' who had the luck in life to catch a 'one in million' disease. I can just see her now - wondering why it couldn't have been at the penny slots or why it wasn't a million moments from now so she could see her 1st grandson born or why it was even her. But then I think again and can hear her speaking to me.....it's the big moments in life that teach us the lessons we will carry with us for a lifetime. She was one of my moments.

Not many of us can sit back and remember every conversation word for word, every place we went to and at what times, every meal we ate, and everything we watched on TV on one day over a week ago. What we do remember are the good and the bad moments that we made with the people we love and by ourselves. Truly at the end of our lives when we are gone from this earth that is what those who knew us will remember us for as well, the moments that we shared with them.

This is why it is important that you remember the profound effect you had on someone else's life. We need to hold on to the things we love, the things that have made us who we are, and who we never want to lose.

Listening to others speak about my friend and their memories of her, made that day so much more meaningful for her loved ones and friends. I am glad someone recorded it. Her grandchildren will love to listen to it one day to get to know the woman their grandmother was.

It gave me a closure that I needed. My friend was one in a million and gave me one in a million memories. I will never forget her.

We do not remember days, we remember moments.