A Voice From the Other Side

I stood in what looked to be a white kitchen apartment. The door which led to the outer hallway was directly to my left. Someone from the other side began to push the door open while I was attempting to push it closed.... That's when I heard.... "Jaaa-ckie"  My eyes popped open like I had been hit by a bolt of lightening. I knew that voice... I could even tell you what kind of mood she was in by the tone of the voice... It was my Mom. She has been gone for 19 months and this is the first dream I've had of her.... The first time I've heard her voice since before she died.  I reached for my phone to check the time.... It was 4:30 am.  There would be no going back to sleep for me. I got up and went to the gym, still a little rattled. Her voice was so clear, her tone so familiar. The push and pull with the door was very indicative of our relationship. The symbolism wasn't lost to me. I've often wondered if she knew that I did my best to take care of her. I've wanted to tell her that if I had known sooner how sick she was, I would have opened the door...  Well, sooner. Her illness came on so quickly and her mind deteriorated  so fast.... I just didn't know.  When she became unable to speak, I would look into her eyes, searching for some kind of recognition that she knew I was being the daughter she hoped I would be...... I couldn't find the woman I knew there... The eyes I looked into were weak, broken ,and frail.... My Mom was none of those things. But the voice.... The voice on the other side of the door..... It was strong and sweet. She didn't say anything else, but the tone of her voice said all I needed to hear.

Let Your Ripples Sparkle and Dance All the Way to the Shore

My daughter is in the process of making a very important life choice. Will she continue with the military a few more years or will she come home and begin the business of having her life as her own again?

It sounds like it would be an easy decision, but it has caused her a lot of stress. She has had to assess where she is in life as opposed to where she wants to be. She has had to calculate the best path to take, to get where she wants to be. She has had to look at what her hearts desires are and what path to take to see them fulfilled. There are always a multitude of angles that must be considered  when making these decisions. My son is in the process of opening his own business. He has a ton of choices to make, location, promotion, long-term vs. short-term goals. These decisions will not only affect him but those who are in business with him and the future of their families years down the road. Those are not decisions that can or should be taken lightly. He's also had to make the decision to resign from his current position as volunteer coordinator at the shelter where he works. The shelter, the people he has worked with and the clients he has helped has been a big part of his life the last couple of years and although he isn't letting it go completely, he won't be as intimately involved as he has been. There's a little ache there, the pains of letting go.  Life goes on, you make choices when you are young and those choices follow you around one way or another

for the rest of your life. Some choices seem like no big deal, but will they seem that way years down the road? Our choices mold
us into the people we become and the goal is to never stop becoming.... always becoming
more. It may seem that the choices of your
youth are more difficult than the choices you make as you mature, that isn't so.
Everyday I wake up to a multitude of choices that will effect not only me, but my co-workers, family, friends and my future grandchildren.

Most choices are Black/White, Right/Wrong, and I think I'm the one who adds the gray area that tends to cause the problems. Some mornings I wake up and I am raring to make good choices, other mornings I have to make a concentrated effort to be wise, focused and thoughtful with my choices.... To pick up my cross and bear it for the cause of Christ.  I told someone the other day that when Christ said "It is finished", as he died on the cross not only was he talking about the work he came to do, but the fact that the battle against his flesh (because he did battle it) was over. I believe that Christ, being fully human, experienced the draining, exhausting battle

between the Spirit and Flesh. So when I feel like giving up and just flipping a coin for the choice of the day, I have to remember it's not all about me. Like ripples in a pond caused by one drop of water.... Those ripples sparkle and dance all the way to the shore where others are standing, watching the mesmerizing affect one drop of water can make. Not all choices are do or die choices.
Often the most difficult choice of the day is when I get up in the morning and search for the perfect pair of shoes (those are the good days). The first choice of the day can determine the

direction your day takes. Just try wearing an uncomfortable, ugly pair of shoes all day and you will know that first choice can determine the smile or the frown on your face at the end of the day. Go out there today and make the best choices you can and if you remember nothing else, remember this... If you truly want to make an impact, fashion always trumps comfort and immediate gratification can cost you a lifetime of ripples on the pond of life. How are your ripples going to sparkle and dance today? Hopefully in a very good way...

My Week In Words

It's been a good week!!! I went to the neurologist Tuesday and he totally fixed the dizziness. He couldn't do anything about the other stuff but the dizziness he nipped in the bud. Of course, part of that cure was wearing a ridiculous soft collar for 48 hours with instructions "Not to move my head in any direction" and "You must sleep sitting up". Yes! That was tons of fun, looked like a giant flea collar and stunted my style for a full 48 hours! UGH!!! Even though the collar was soft, it hurt like heck, not to mention that it pushed all of my neck fat up to my cheeks and made me look like I had a permanent pout.Explaining the purpose of the collar was even more entertaining because... well.... it all just sounded ridiculous, but I took the collar off yesterday morning and no dizziness at all, even when I laid down. So, yay!!! I'm speaking in complete sentences now without hesitation and I haven't had a bad headache since Tuesday. That's about as normal as it gets for me. Seriously,l I'm feeling sooo much better and am very thankful that I am. My husband has been oh so wonderful to me and I can't thank him enough for being the sweet guy he is. The whole "Falling in the hole" thing has been tougher on him than it has been on me. Yesterday he sent me one of those questionnaire things that people email you. This was a bucket list thingy. At the end of the questionnaire it asked "What do you see yourself doing in 10 years"? My answer was "The same ole, same ole only slower". A couple of hours later he sent me a bucket list of things that I have done, adventures that we have shared and memories that we hold dear. It was a stark reminder that I have had a good life and it's not over until the fat lady sings or you just give up on your dreams. I'm not sure what my dreams are right now but when I figure it out... Buddy move over because I'll be ready to geterdone! Yesterday I got a sweet surprise visit from my Besty... Charlotte Webb and her daughter. They dropped by to give me my birthday present (only 18 days late!). It was picked out by Alicia especially for "Aunt JacJac" and I love it. It's a framed print that says "The Dreams You Dream Today Are Things You'll Do Tomorrow" which is perfect for the way I've been feeling lately. I've got the perfect spot picked out for it (a blank spot in my bedroom if you can imagine) and tonight I'll hammer it in place (all willie nillie, which drives my husband nuts), so I'll always be reminded that dreams do come true. They caught me as I was leaving work and we hooted and hollered out in the parking lot for 20 minutes. She was bragging about how much she loved the "Beauty Bible" I got her for her birthday. She took it to Walmart to pick out new stuff so she wouldn't look so old... LOL! she had never hear of primer before, which made me belly laugh. After all, who paints an old house without priming it first. I love her!! She makes me laugh telling me stories of being a mom of a teenage girl.... Been there, done that, boy is it a trip!! Her daughter has grown up to be such a beautiful girl.... has the face of a doll, just like her mom. I swear, Charlotte and I have a lot of water under the bridge and we're both paddling our canoe upstream as fast as we can. She brings out the best in me... the part I'd almost forgotten was there and the part I like the most. She makes me belly laugh whenever we're together and she can put me in a state of shock with some of the things she says. I forget how much alike we are until we get together and start chattering like a couple of magpies. My boss came out as they were leaving and told me that he could hear us all the way in his office (like that was a big deal), to which I replied "You should have seen us when we worked together, that's the way it was all day long." We had such a good time. Gosh, that was a long "Honkin" time ago!!! So long in fact it was a time when we used to dream about being grown up and now we dream of staying young..... My how time flies.