Thank You Mom!

It’s pretty common knowledge that this Sunday is Mother’s Day.  Therefore I would be remiss if I didn’t write something this week about my mom and mothers.  Now this seemed like a simple task when I first thought of it, because I’ve known my mom my whole life, so how hard could this be?  Well it was way more difficult than you could imagine because that’s a life time of thankfulness, funny moments, and memories I would have to narrow down into a blog post.  Where would I even start?  Now don’t worry Dad, your day is coming too, so don’t feel slighted.  In order to address my writing dilemma, I decided to pen an open letter to moms while weaving in my own experiences with my mom throughout it. 

Dear Mom,

Let me start out by saying thank you for teaching me the alphabet and how to read and write so that I could write this letter to you.  You’d read me bedtime stories and sometimes I’d read along, or I’d put in a request for enough books and glasses of water to delay bedtime as much as possible.  You always knew what I was up to, but you were willing to add in a couple of stories anyway.  When I didn’t read along, there were only two bears in the Goldilocks story because you were tired, but I made sure to read next time so that there were all three.  Thanks for letting me keep you up to practice my reading when you had already had a full day at work.  Look it’s paying off because now you’re in my blog!

I’d also like to say thank you for the life lessons that skinned knees do heal.  I never really got it at the time, but when I fell off my bike into that thorn bush while trying to hang with the older kids in the neighborhood, you meticulously picked out the thorns that were stuck and said it’ll be ok, you’ll heal.  You were always there to pick me back up, clean and bandage my skinned knees, take the grass stains out of my soccer jerseys, wash the mud off my hands after I picked the flowers you told me not to pick, and said it’ll be ok.  Through all of this I learned, that sometimes stuff happens, but tomorrow is coming and everything will be ok.   

Thanks for having patience with me, even when I couldn’t follow directions the first time, and things would go awry.  You would give me the look that said I told you so, and explain why you told me so, but you were always there to make sure I was alright.  Your support was always unwavering and helped me to learn from the hard knocks in life, even if I was too hard headed to listen the first time.

Thanks for being my biggest cheerleader too.  You would wear those big pinned on buttons to my basketball and soccer games with my picture on them, and dress in the school colors.  You wore those pins with such pride even though my gangly, adolescent, awkward looking self was on them and I always felt like an MVP when you did.  I used to be embarrassed and ask you to stop when you’d brag to your friends that I scored a goal, but deep down I actually really enjoyed it because I was proud too.  Even my friends enjoyed hearing you clear across the gym or the field losing your voice yelling “Go Ed Go!”

That’s what you were always good at though, making me feel special even if I didn’t believe it about myself at the time.  There were days when my test in school didn’t go the way I planned, or when I lost that game on a free throw in 7^th grade, and you still said, “I think you’re great, and you’ll get it next time.”  It rebuilt my confidence and I knew I could face the world again, stronger and tougher than I was before.

The reality is Mom, I could keep writing paragraph after paragraph saying thank you and reminiscing about the things we’ve been through, and the fun that we’ve had.  I know Dad was there too, but today’s your day so I’m talking to you, he can wait until June.  We may not have always seen eye to eye on everything, and I know it would break your heart to say no to that toy, or the ice cream cone, or whatever else as I got older.  The one thing I could always count on was that you were always there for me, with my best interest at heart, and I’m grateful for that.

You’ve sacrificed a lot throughout the years to make sure that I had a happy childhood, a good education and a good life.  There really isn’t any amount of money that can repay you for what you’ve done for me, but I’m forever indebted for the things you’ve done because you always found a way to make the impossible happen.  Thanks Mom!

Love,
 Your son

Happy Mother’s Day to all of my friends who are moms and most importantly for me,

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom.

(yes, this is a pic of  my mom and I on my first birthday)

Learning from Lacey's Legacy

The morning of April 9, 2014 many people awoke to the news that Lacey Holsworth, an 8 year old little girl in Michigan had died of cancer around 1:00am that morning.  People who have never met Lacey were saddened by her passing and felt that they themselves had lost a loved one.  While it is always sad when someone dies, especially a child, many felt connected to her touching story because it unfolded very publicly after an encounter in 2012 at Sparrow Hospital with Michigan State basketball star Adreian Payne.  The two formed an immediate bond which strengthened and grew over time.  As many learned of her battle with cancer, there was an outpouring of love and support showed to her and her family from total strangers.  You didn’t have to be a Spartan fan, to be a fan of Lacey cheering her on through her battle with Neuroblastoma.  Princess Lacey (a nickname she affectionately took on) was such a young spirit, but there are so many great lessons that we can learn from her. 

All too often, we get caught up in the hype and bravado that we have to be a well-known, wealthy or highly influential person to make a difference or be important.  Lacey taught us that significance comes in all sizes and ages.  As an 8 year old little girl she lived her life with courage, and had a tremendous positive influence on others.  A pebble can be dropped in a pond and even though it’s not the biggest rock there will be a ripple effect created.  This can positively influence the lives of others, so it’s not always necessary to be the biggest, loudest voice in the room, just the most genuine. 

When Lacey was sitting in Sparrow Hospital in 2012 recovering from surgery, she had no specific laid out plans to cut down a net at the Big Ten Championship game, watch Adreian Payne in the dunk contest in Dallas, TX, or go on the Today Show and Good Morning America.  Would it be cool?  Of course.  But Lacey was living her life, determined to smile through her discomfort and the life altering difficulties that cancer presented.  That determination lead to her building a bond with Adreian Payne, which lead to inspiring a whole basketball team, and eventually others across the nation.  Lacey was creating her own ripple effect by being herself.

Lacey’s determination and courage to keep smiling and make the most out of her days is something else that we all can learn from.  It’s easy to get caught up in the complaints of our daily lives because something isn’t going right, or it’s not going the way we planned it.  This isn’t to mitigate the serious nature of what’s happening, but it’s too easy for that negativity to consume us and dictate how we interact with those we love and others.  I’ve been guilty of it on certain occasions myself, so you won’t find any finger pointing here.  But what if we shifted our perspective a bit and took the time to be thankful for what we have in our lives?  What if we approached each day being thankful for being able to see the sun rise, thankful for having people in our lives who love us, and looking for the silver lining of different moments? 

Lacey was grateful for each day she had, because she never knew what day would be her last.  She always had a smile on her face whenever the camera would show her in the stands at a game, or when strangers would ask for pictures with her, even though she had so much going on in her life.  If we approached life with a little more gratefulness would our interactions with others change, would we enjoy the little moments a bit more, and not take so much for granted?

The legacy that Lacey has left behind will be impossible to measure.  She touched the lives of so many people and will continue to remain in the hearts of many.  A vigil at MSU in her memory brought out droves of people in and outside of the community many of whom signed a famous landmark rock on Michigan State University’s campus.  The rock usually gets repainted with something new every 24 hours, from student group names, to events, to proposals, etc., but that same message in her memory (pictured below) has been there since April 9^th with more and more people making the journey to sign it with prayers, words of encouragement for the family, and messages of love.  Her story has inspired ESPN sports analyst Dick Vitale a long-time advocate for cancer research to set up a research fund in her name (click here). 

Lacey was just a child, but the way she lived embodied the words of a former famous basketball coach Jim Valvano who died of cancer as well, “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.”

While you or I may not have cancer, if we live like Lacey with courage genuineness and determination, and love like Lacey (like it says at the bottom of the rock), while staying true to ourselves, we can leave our lasting impression on the world, and fully enjoy each and every day.

Thank You Teachers

Inspiration for some of my blogs can emerge from some of the most unlikely places.  I was recently sitting behind a car at a red light when I saw a bumper sticker that said: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”  Immediately I thought of myself as a kid in elementary school with my class issued reading book, and I smiled to myself.  I’ve seen this bumper sticker before in other places, but this time it brought back some recent thoughts that I had about the tireless efforts of teachers.  Having said that, I wanted to write my blog this week as a thank you to teachers at all levels.

The gratitude that we should have for teachers and educators was already on my mind because of some stories that I had recently seen about Strawberry Mansion High School in Philadelphia, and Trenton Central High School in New Jersey.  The story about Strawberry Mansion High School followed Assistant Superintendent for the school district, Linda Cliatt-Wayman.  She was serving as a volunteer principal at the school because it had gone through four principles in four years.  The school has been deemed one of the most dangerous high schools in the nation, and currently has 94 security cameras as well as metal detectors.  Despite all of this, Ms. Cliatt-Wayman was willing to volunteer to be their principal to save the school from being closed down.  While the story about the school was eye opening, my thoughts turned to the teachers in that school.  I thought about how difficult it must be to teach in such conditions, yet they still show up to work every day for their students.

The story about Trenton Central High School in New Jersey was about a building that was falling apart.  The structure of the building had been so deteriorated that there were walls with mildew and mold as well as leaking roofs.  After seeing the conditions shown, I was shocked that the building hadn’t been condemned for safety and health reasons.  But once again, when I saw this story, I thought about the teachers.  They were expected to perform their jobs in conditions that were not fit for anyone to work under.

I have a lot of friends who are teachers in Pre-K – 12 education and some who are professors in college, so I believe that’s why I think of teachers when I see stories like that.  Granted the schools mentioned are some extreme examples that made the news but there are schools all over our nation that have dilapidated buildings and low to no resources for our teachers to use.  While there are some schools who could be confused for a small college based on their facilities and amenities, there is a common thread among teachers, and that is that they give of themselves every day for their students. 

Teachers unfortunately don’t get paid lavishly for the work that they do, and sometimes end up spending some of their own money on their classrooms.  They are also under a fair amount of stress to perform on a regular basis, but they make a difference in the lives of our nation’s youth every day.  From comforting a child who skins their knee on the playground, to breaking up fights, to spending time after class to make sure that their students understand the material taught, our teachers are a valuable asset to the advancement of our nation. 

The time and effort our teachers put in with their students leads to the education of our future leaders in any occupation you can think of.  It is easy to take for granted the hard work of our teachers because many of them make it look easy, but it’s important that we show our gratitude to them and let them know they are appreciated.  They take the time to create lesson plans, stay for parent teacher conferences, grade homework, and attend in-services on some holidays.   There are also some teachers who take the time to coach athletic teams, run music programs or direct theater productions after putting in a full day with their students.  This effort, and their constant care and concern for their students is why I’d like to say not only thank you to the teachers that I’ve had, but thank you to teachers everywhere.

 

Thankful for Good...and Bad?

As the Thanksgiving Holiday draws closer by the hour, we see on many social media networks people asking friends to post what they are thankful for.  This is certainly the perfect season to be pensive of what we appreciate and to share that gratitude with our friends and family as we all get together and reconnect this upcoming weekend.  There is plenty in my life that I am grateful for, and the ease of creating such a list is something in and of itself I am thankful for.  I won’t bore you with my full inventory here, but as I watched others post their thankful lists on Facebook, some by the day, others by the week, I started to notice a pattern.  I noticed that so many things were related to family, pets, jobs, and all around very positive feel-good type things.  This got me to start thinking (not in a scrooge bah-humbug way) but what about the not-so-good things; can we be thankful for those too?  In that moment, I found this week’s blog.

I started to think about the potential for being thankful for the unconventional not-so-good things that people usually aren’t thankful for.  I wondered if I could still be thankful for some of those things even though in the moment it was painful and difficult and the answer was, “Yes”.  You’re probably thinking I went off the deep end and how could that be so, but it’s possible.  I’ve written about finding a silver lining in a previous post titled ‘When Life Happens…’ but this is something a little bit different.  I’m referring to being thankful for something after the event or occurrence has happened in a reflection for how it has contributed to making us a better and stronger person, not just finding something positive in the moment to get through it.  I’m also not saying you should be thankful for every bad thing that has happened to you, but there are some that might not be as bad when we look back on it.

A prime personal example of that was the end of my dream of becoming a doctor.  As a child, adults always ask, “What you want to be when you grow up?”.  For as long as I can remember my answer was consistently ‘A doctor’.  In college my experiences coaching youth basketball, volunteering as a mentor for kids, and substitute teaching narrowed my answer down to ‘A Pediatrician’.  The next thing I knew I was walking across the stage with a Pre-Med Physiology degree, but I had received rejection letters from the medical schools that I applied to.  Instead of becoming a Pediatrician, I pursued a Master’s Degree in Health Communications.  While in that program I was an Assistant Hall Director and discovered and built a career in Student Affairs.  I couldn’t have been more thankful for those med. school rejection letters because student affairs (Residence Life to be specific) was where I had some of the most amazing experiences, and met an abundance of wonderful people, staff and students.  At the time yes, the rejection letters were devastating, but I could never have predicted such a bright light at the end of the tunnel and looking back on it, I am thankful for what it lead to.

When asked what we are thankful for we tend to focus on the easy things that make us happy and that are positive. There’s nothing wrong with that because that’s great, I always encourage positivity.  But it’s also important to reflect on the tough times that have made us who we are today.  The things many people focus on as regrets, are instead the events and occurrences that have given us an opportunity to be stronger, smarter, and better people.  I’m not saying you should ruin your Thanksgiving by flooding your thoughts with bad stuff that has happened to you.  However it is important to think about the things that have made you who you are today, that may not have been ideal at the time but now could be something you would be thankful for happening because without it, you would never be who you are today.  We should learn to live our lives with no regrets.  Stop looking back and saying “I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve”.  The bottom line is that it happened, and you can move forward carrying with you the knowledge and experience gained to make your own life and the lives of others better.  We can be thankful for those times as well as everything else that is feel-good and positive.

Watering Your Own Grass

After you read the title for this you might be wondering if I’ve turned in my typing thumb for a green thumb after only one post.  Well, my parents are the better gardeners in the family, so I’ll leave that to them.  The title refers to a meme I saw while scrolling through Facebook inspired me to reexamine a cliché.  (a meme is where a phrase is typically superimposed on a picture).  It took the cliché “The grass is always greener on the other side.” and flipped it on its head.  It said “The grass is greener, where you water it.”

Now it doesn’t take a horticulturist to figure out something as obvious as a plant is greener due to more water.  But it made me think, what if we on a daily basis really applied this meme to our lives the way we typically fall into the trap of the cliché.  I know I’ve been guilty of the thought on quite a few occasions that: “the grass is greener on the other side”.  However as I reflect on the words within the meme, was I really noticing my own grass, and was I cultivating it to be as green as ‘the other side’?  In addition to that, was the grass I was seeing in the proverbial ‘over there’ truly as green as it initially seemed?

I reflected on the times I had wished I was someone else, or had someone else’s position in life.  Occasions that came to mind were watching my friends get married while I was single wishing it was me, driving past multi-million dollar homes wishing I was living there, or even as a young child I can sometimes remember thinking “I wish I had a sibling” (I’m still an only child…um...well adult. But you know what I mean).  I’m sure that at some point, you’ve had a similar line of thinking, or maybe you have it frequently, I’m not here to judge you.  I can tell you that even the most self-confident person has that little green monster of envy rearing its ugly head from time to time evoking the thought “Wow. I wish that was me.”  There is however a danger here when we begin to buy in to this line of thinking.  For some people this envy can lead to resentment toward their situation or worse, resentment toward special people in their lives.  Quite often in those other situations the grass isn’t really that much greener and there are a lot of unseen circumstances that might not be too great that has led to what we deem as ‘greener grasses’. 

I want to encourage you to take the time to water your own grass to make it greener like the meme says.  Take time to be thankful for the things in your own life that you’re truly thankful for.  If you don’t know where to start I will share some suggestions with you to help get you started at the end of this post.  Even if you believe your life situation isn’t the most ideal, I promise you, that you still have green grass to enjoy.  Sometimes that situation you’re looking at isn’t meant for you at that time in your life.  On other occasions you might be missing out on the benefits of your own situation and some really great memorable moments or opportunities because you’re too worried wishing you had someone else’s.

I will concede that there is a thin line here where some people would assert “But it’s just my goal to live in a house or drive a car, etc. like that. What’s wrong with that?”  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Having a goal is something completely different and that’s where watering your own grass comes into play.  Taking the time to assess your situation and what decisions you can make to better yourself or your situation to reach your goal is a substantial way of watering your grass.  Don’t just say I wish that was me.  Look at your situation and make a plan to reach your goals.  Sometimes it takes small goals which can lead to you accomplishing your larger goals.  Finding the things you are thankful for is another way of watering, and it may help you realize that your grass is greener than you originally thought.

I promised to share some suggestions as a sprinkler to help you get started on watering your own grass and you can find those simple tips below.  They might even inspire you to think of other ways.  I have faith in you.  You can make your grass greener, so go for it!!!

Tips for watering your own grass:

1.       Put a notepad next to your bed.  Before you go to sleep write down something good that happened to you during that day.  It can be as simple as I got my favorite parking spot.  After a while you’ll have a record of positive things that have happened to you that you can look at when you’re feeling not so positive.

2.       When you wake up in the morning say to yourself three times “Today is going to be a good day.”  Putting yourself in a positive mindset first thing in the morning will affect the decisions you make all day

3.       Think of an activity that makes you happy and feel good about yourself.  Make a plan to make that activity happen more than once, or on a regular basis.

4.       Think of someone you shared a great memory with that you haven’t talked to in a while and reach out to them to relive that memory.  Do this on multiple occasions with different people you know.  You’ll be able to reconnect with friends and share a good laugh.

5.       Figure out a way to laugh at least twice in a day.  Whether it’s watching a YouTube video, retelling a story, watching a funny movie, etc. There is plenty of scientific research that says laughing is good for your health.

6.       Make a list of 10 things you’re thankful for in your life.  If there are people on your list, take the time to tell them.

7.       If you find yourself saying “I wish that was me”, take the time to write down some concrete steps (big and small) that you can take to make that you.  Then follow through on those steps.  Soon your grass really will be greener. 

Happy Watering!