My Thought For Today...

When one door of happiness closes, another opens: But often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

Now that I have Cancer......................

...I cry a lot. I have never been much of a weeper. I often feel like letting go and just letting the tears flow. But that was not something I've ever done. I have always left that open, right out there in front of the world crying to my sister LuAnne and my Mom. Even in the darkness of the theater, when the hero disappears into the cold murky water of the Atlantic (yes Titanic) even than I tighten up my tear ducts and tell those tears to stay put.

When I was in my early twenties I can remember seeing "The Way We Where". I can still see Barbara Streisand standing in front of the Plaza Hotel handing out fliers to ban the bomb. From across the street you see Robert Redford... They see each other... In that moment I just wanted to cry loud sobbing tears right there in that theater. But no I kept my sorrow inside. Only now in these past several years have I been able to show my sorrow so openly.

I envy my sister her tears. She is a good crier! I know by the streams of tears on her cheeks that some scene or action or word has reached in and shaken her heart.

Now that I have had cancer and seen its return I have given myself permission to cry. Oh, I still prefer not to cry in public. I think that if I just started to openly cry in public it might scare or freak some people out. They might just think I have finally lost my marbles, or sat on a tack! I'm talking about permission to myself, permission to cry when I feel like it. Much of my weeping is because of chemotherapy hangover or just side effects of the other drugs I'm taking.

I am sure however that I now weep because everything is so beautiful. When I'm in the garden or have the cats out on their leashes playing I just cry.

Now when I cry I feel that everything in my life is in balance. That I am right with all the things in my life. So much is wondrous and beautiful. I can not even begin to tell about it. No words would be adequate. So I have to cry.

I know there are tears of sadness and bitterness and grief. I don't think that these tears are so very different from tears of beauty. We cry because of love..... its absence..... its presence. In this way tears are the surest sign of love.

We don't really have to know why another is crying in order to share the love, beauty, or sorrow. Tears unit us... they take us into the depth of beauty.

Now that I have cancer, I cry a lot ...... and when I cry I know everything is okay.

Here is my UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE PLAN! They always make me feel better!

This week I've received two very disturbing e-mails I put them here on the blog in hopes that you will join the fight to stop this downhill ride the President is trying to take us all on. It can only end in a mess that we may not recover from.
(Stephinie Lund)
ON THE "ABC..OBAMA SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE"......OBAMA WAS ASKED: "MR. PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM AND JOIN THE NEW "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM" THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE ON ?OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND DIDN'T ANSWER IT!!!A NUMBER OF SENATORS WERE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION AND THEIR RESPONSE WAS ... WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT !!!!IT WAS ALSO ANNOUNCED TODAY ON THE NEWS THAT THE "KENNEDY HEALTH CARE BILL" HAS WRITTEN INTO IT THAT CONGRESS WILL BE (FROM THIS GREAT HEALTH CARE PLAN) EXEMPT !!!!!HOW ABOUT THOSE APPLES.....NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OBAMA OR CONGRESS..... BUT "OK" FOR THE REST OF US?
(Martha Bybee)
Investors Business Daily uncovered the fact that the bill makes the sale of new private insurance policies illegal! That is how the President can get around his "promise" that "If you like your current insurance you can keep it." Well of course, since the fine print makes new private policies illegal. When you change a job or if you start a new business you can't get a new private policy. You will be forced into Government run health care. Inevitably, all private options will collapse.
There is also mandatory "end of life counseling" for Seniors, regardless of health conditions. The counseling is required every 5 years and includes such topics as choice of antibiotic and nutrition refusal.
I'm not comfortable with all this focus on cost either. Cost concerns inevitably lead to rationing of care. When are we too old or past our useful equality of life to keep alive? (Do we really want what our Canadian and British friends suffer through; endless waiting lists and premature death?)

Longfellow said, "Into each life a little rain must fall," and what an inspired weatherman he was. It may be the only forecast guaranteed 100 percent accurate for everyone. The friend or acquaintance that you assume "have it all" is a fellow passenger on this ride we call life. They have their rainy days too.

Rain has a bad reputation. A symbol of misfortune, it is often associated with melancholy and suffering and misrepresented as a defect in the way life should be. But as any farmer can tell you: if there is no rain, there's no growth.

As I reflect on the experiences of my mortal education, I feel that I am walking through a rainstorm. Sometimes it is muddy and sometime clean and refreshing, but never quite picture perfect. Never, unless I decide to look at my life as though it were rain on a flower garden.

Foliage loves the rain even though the life giving shower often puts stress on the stems, leafs and flowers. Following the rain those blooms are washed clean and their colors are vivid and brilliant. Flowers raise their glistening heads on stronger stalks.

In life we experience both gentle showers and sudden and unpredictable cloudbursts. The attitude with which we embrace them and the beauty we find in their unpredictability and necessity will determine whether or not we have the courage to venture out in the rain again.

I am grateful God has loved me enough to send the rain and allow me to be able to walk in it, muddy and sticky or clean and refreshing. Each storm provides opportunities to grow and the joy of splashing in those lovely puddles.

Come dearest friends and walk and run in the rain with me. Let us laugh and cry together and if we are lucky get our feet just a little bit wet!