my little friend Molly.....

The Relay For Life brings this story back to the forefront of my mind and I would like to share it with you all............

I have a little friend and her name is Molly. I met her 4 short years ago when she was born into this world. Her mother is my son's former girlfriend and we have always remained close friends.....she holds a place in my heart. When Molly was born it was a scary time. I remember recieving the phone call from her mother like it was yesterday. A frightened voice on the phone telling me of her premature birth and now the complications. Molly was very ill, but over time she surprised the world of medicine and she became well. A precious baby girl who was living her first year as babies do. She then was given a gift that would have never been seen as such at the time. She got bronchitis and then pneumonia. These were the gifts.....how so?? A visit to the ER to recheck her bronchitis yielded a surprising discovery. It revealed a mass on her neck. A very dangerous mass.....possibly cancer? This would have not been discovered without the bronchitis or pneumonia.  I remember that call too. I remember sitting in the hospital with family and friends while the biopsy was being done. Molly was 15 months old......far too young to be enduring all of this. When the type of cancer was determined the long haul began. Chemotherapy it would be since the mass was in her neck and surrounding major arteries.....therefore not operable. Another blow. A PICC line is inserted into her tiny little chest and the chemotherapy begins.....eight rounds of it. She loses all her beautiful hair and this really seems to bring it home to all of us. This is real.......I was so sad for her and her mother. But she endured all of this like a trooper.....she did it! She has been well since then and has been living her life exactly the way a little girl should.

What I need for you to know is that this small girl is a gift to all of us. I believe she came here to share her story with us and for us to learn from it. We are the lucky ones to know her. Life shouldn't be that tough when you are that young. It just seems cruel. But I believe her life was tough so that we can live our lives in a way that will honor all that she has gone through. It's the only way to make any sense of all of this. If you are having a tough day think of her tough days while she was an infant. She has taught me alot. She is a special little girl who today is living life the way any 4 year old should. She's just being a kid......and that's perfect.

Lessons in life come wrapped in various packages......

Blessings to you Molly.......

embracing silence.........

The world we live in is a noisy one to say the least. Our ears are filled with sound from the time we get up until we go to bed. We turn on the radio or tv sometimes just to have sound fill the room. We are often uncomfortable with silence. How interesting.......why do we not enjoy the silence? Does our mind need to fill itself with something?.......anything? We often hear people refer to 'peace and quiet' as something that they seek, but then when it is offered to them they move away from it and find themselves back in the "noise of life" because this feels most common to them.I can remember times when silence did bother me. When there was no sound around me my mind would race and my thoughts would create noise in my head. Not a good noise either.......a mess of thoughts that then I needed to be distracted from. Not anymore. Now I can find the solace and peace in silence that I deserve and that will assist me in becoming a more balanced person. It wasn't necessarily all that easy though. I had to let the silence into my life little by little and become friendly with it. Silence had to become my new friend. One that I could trust to bring good things into my life and not let my own self create noise to replace it. Slowly over time I connected with silence. I think that finding peace in silence is closely equated with finding peace inside of yourself. Being at peace with your inner self and expressing it outwardly is a way of sharing it. We don't need noise to mask our true thoughts and feelings. We don't need noise to fill a space that sits empty inside of ourselves. Silence gives our bodies the rest it so truly deserves. It is not a physical rest, but the effects of bringing silence into our lives does affect our physical body. When we take care of our psychological self we are also taking care of our physical self. It all works together. How perfect is that. I have always been drawn to the very early morning when the world has not yet awoken. I love the darkness and the silence that goes along with it. To me that is a perfect time of day. The quiet begins my day and carries itself with me. I can draw on that silence throughout the day when needed.

I came across this quote from Mother Teresa that encompasses an aspect of silence....
"See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grow in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls”
~Mother Teresa

Let the silence in and it will touch your own soul.
Namaste.........

The Half Moon.....

The night sky is dark

A half moon shines bright

The hum of coolness

Is in the air.

I look up at the dark

And witness the moon

It's beauty shines thru

All the darkness above.

See the light

See the night

Share in it's wonder.

disconnecting

I am way too connected to things that really don't need to be. I am online and have an IPhone that has a data plan. When I first got it I thought it was amazing. I recently got a text from my data plan provider and I was almost at my usage limit and still had a week to go before the next billing month started. I panicked because the charges are really high if you go over. So I stayed away from it. I took myself out of the loop of checking emails, Facebook and didn't Google map anything. Turns out I can do it......and I felt a big sense of release and freedom. I think this was a good thing for me to experience. We are made to believe that we MUST be connected to everyone and everything and then all will be right with our world. This is what they want us to believe. It's interesting because I have been pulling back on so much over the past while and letting go and all of that has been a good thing for me. I don't think that I would have even thought of the whole phone thing if I hadn't recieved the text about my data plan soon reaching its limit. So the text was a gift...it was an indicator of further letting go.......disconnecting from an empty habit. It doesn't mean that I won't check my email and go on FB, but I don't need to do this continually. We are so brainwashed into believing that this is the way the world moves and then we must move that way also. So, I need to step outside of this realm and move to my own beat. It actually feels good to take another step towards letting go and understanding what is really important in life.

back at it .....

I haven't been able to post for several weeks now and how is it that when you 'can't' post you want to so badly! Isn't that always the way. I think when I upgraded to IE9 that it all went wonky. I have to publish kind of a different way but it at least posts now. The frustration that the computer gives me when something goes wrong with it is a feeling I don't get with anything else in my life. It's weird.....I get really upset when things don't work out on the computer like they normally would. I guess it's just like my car....I expect it to start and go when I get into it. Maybe it's a signal to me that I need to step back from the computer a bit. I don't have a huge dependancy on it, but I like it to work when I need it. I have been thinking alot lately about 'disconnecting' from some multi media sources and maybe this plays into it too. I have decided that once my IPhone contract is up I will probably return to just a phone....sounds funny "just a phone". I think downgrading is a good thing. I need to connect more to my inner self than an external source not driven by a soul. I will stay the course and let you know how it goes.

my Maya dream came true......

Last week I was thrilled to be able to go to hear Maya Angelou speak at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto. It has been a dream of mine to hear her in person. I have seen her on television several times and her wisdom has always astonished me. Her life experiences are chronicled in her books and I just recently finished reading her first book "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings". It was an incredible account of a young black girl growing up in the times that did not herald itself to the embracing of the black community. Through all of her adversity experienced she grew up to be a strong woman and now shares all of this with the world. Just being in her presence was such an amazing feeling. I can now proudly say that I have been able to cross of another name on my list of people that I would like to hear and see in person.

I'm still holding out for the Dalai Lama :)

A quick note.........

Have been away too long again. I now have a week off and time to refresh myself and regroup. I love these weeks off that fall into my schedule at work. Its a nice reprieve every six weeks. It is supposed to be very, very hot this week so I better get prepared for that! Our weather has been very, very rainy otherwise. Someone this morning noted that her plants in the community garden will need to know how to swim if this rain keeps up! I will post more about the community garden later. Its a great project that I am involved in!

Will post more later .....truly will.