Things to Ponder

I'm just going to start off by saying that I don't claim to be overly patriotic and I'm not one of those "American til I die" kind of people. I like America. I like living here, but I've always found myself to be more Texan than American. Hey, we were our own country, once.

Anyway, I've noticed that when famous politicians, former Presidents etc die, I get really pissed off at the businesses/establishments who don't lower their flag to half staff. I can think of two times in particular that this has seriously pissed me off. In 2006, Ann Richards, former governor of Texas died. I remember driving down the Dallas North Tollway and driving past a hotel who hadn't lowered their flag. I was so pissed by this that I googled their phone number and called them while driving to tell them that they were ridiculous. I remember saying something like "She was from Texas you assholes!"

Second time this has bothered me. Recently, Ted Kennedy passed away. As his funeral services and viewings were going on, most businesses etc had found the time to lower their flags. However, there were a few that did not take the 2 minutes it would take to do this and left their flags flying high. I'm not sure why this bothers me so much, but I just kind of feel like if you're going to spend the money to put in a flag pole and have an American flag, then you sure as hell better lower it when the timing is right.

My next thing to ponder -
Road rage. I realized this morning that when I'm driving and you piss me off, I'll call you something I would not normally say and I'll say it with pride. For example, this morning this woman was driving like a complete maniac. She cut me off, she cut off other people and then came back to cut me off again. I found myself screaming out a four letter word that under normal circumstances I find disgusting. I'll let you use your imagination to figure out what it was, but basically it's a word usually reserved for women and may or may not start with a c and end in a t.

I felt dirty after I said it, but at the same time, it felt good. I wanted to call her something terrible because I was pissed at the way she was driving. We're all trying to get to work, why should she get to drive like a maniac?

The remote control changed our lives.....The remote control took over the timing of the world. That's why you have road rage. You have people who have no patience, because you got immediate gratification. You got click, click, click, click. If it doesn't explode within three seconds, click, click, click, click.
-Sid Caesar

Do we ever get enough time?

My grandfather recently passed away and as I've spent some time discussing his life with my step-grandmother, I came to the realization that even if we would have had 10 more years with him, I don't think I would have felt like it was enough time.

Which caused me to ponder even further....if we knew the day we were born the exact day that we would die what would we do differently? Sure, we'd all like to say that we'd stop and smell the roses, take more time to enjoy the little things but would we really? If you think about it, hundreds of people die a day. A lot of them die from things that they knew would kill them and knew that the end was coming. Of those several people, you only hear about 1 or 2 who truly made the most of their time left here with us. So, if we knew from day one when the last day of our life would be, what would we really do differently?

Me personally? I probably wouldn't do anything differently. I've enjoyed every minute of my life so far and I am constantly learning or experiencing something new. I think if I knew my life was going to be over tomorrow about the only thing I would change is calling a few friends and making sure that they know exactly how much they've meant to me in my life. Other than that, what's the point of changing anything? You're still not going to have enough time to do everything you can think of and in the end, people are still going to wish they had more time wtih you (hopefully).

I think that if we're all living our lives the way we should be and we're all making choices that make us happy, then we're all at a place where we can say "I've enjoyed my life" .

If not, then maybe we need to do some soul searching and figure out what's missing.

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. -Martha Washington

It's official

It's official!!! I'm going to be an Aunt to another beautiful, bouncing, baby BOY!

His name will be Lucas Paul! I can't wait for little Lucas to get here!!! How exciting!

Bittersweet Goodbyes

In life we traditionally follow a certain path....we are born, we live, and we die. Many variations of this path can exist and we've all seen how different someone else's path can be from our own. However, in the end, we all die. We all come to the end of our journey and must say goodbye.

Sometimes, people pass and we never get a chance to tell them that last "I love you" or let them know how we feel about them. And sometimes, the gods of life smile upon us and let us have those final moments with the ones we love. This weekend was one such moment for me. My grandfather has decided to stop going to dialysis. As most of you probably already know, quitting dialysis is essentially signing your own death certificate as death is imminent and your life basically becomes a waiting game. My grandfather's last dialysis treatment was last Monday, August 3. That means that he has now gone 7 days without a treatment. According to various websites, dialysis patients who quit treatment can survive anywhere from 3 days to several weeks. However, the process isn't fun and is often very painful. Your kidneys function so that they can remove toxins from your body, and more specifically nitrogen. When you are no longer removing these fluids from your body, nitrogen builds up and causes a great deal of pain in your muscles. Additionally, the body becomes very bloated because you begin to retain fluids.

Yesterday, I went to see my grandfather for the last time. All of the above mentioned things were happening to him. His face was swollen, as was his abdomen, and it was very apparent that he was in pain. As I sat by his bedside, I found myself wondering if I had made the right choice coming to see him one last time. It was hard to see him in so much pain and harder still to try and figure out what I could say to him that would matter in my final moments with him. On the advice of friends, I kept the conversation light and mostly just sat by his side, holding his hand occasionally, and smiling big when he would look in my direction.

My grandfather also suffers from Alzheimer's. On any given visit, it's hard to know if he truly remembers you or is just being cordial. In my final moments with my grandfather, something different happened. As I leaned in to look at my grandfather's beautiful eyes for the last time, he reached up and cupped my cheek. He said "Hi darling" and smiled the biggest smile I've seen in years. (darling is a word he's often called me through out my childhood, especially when I haven't seen him in a while). I told him that I didn't think I'd get a chance to see him again, and he replied "That's okay". I leaned in, gave him a big kiss and told him I loved him all while trying to hold back the enormous amount of tears I could feel flooding my eyes. He simply replied "I love you too, baby" and kissed my cheek.

To say that yesterday was the hardest day of my life would be a gross understatement. While I do not regret being there because I can forever hold onto his final "I love you too, baby", my heart is absolutely broken.

UPDATE: Apparently I made it just in time yesterday. Today at about 2:00PM we lost my grandfather. While I'm deeply saddened by his loss, I'm also at peace. I know he was in a lot of pain yesterday and I didn't want him to suffer any longer than he already had. If it were possible for to my heart to break anymore, it has.

"Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love. It can't take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death."

Yesterday, I gave blood for the second time this year. I know, I know, I could have done it more than twice given that it's August, but I'm a little slow sometimes.

Anyway, it made me realize that while a lot of my friends are very generous with their time and money, people often forget that giving blood is also an essential part of the way some of our medical treatments work.

Here are just a few examples of how your blood can be used to maybe save some else's life:


Red blood cells:

• used for treatment of accident victims
• used to replace blood lost during surgery
• used to treat burn victims
• used to increase the body's oxygen carrying capacity
• used for the treatment of anemia when it can't be medically treated

Platelets:

• used to treat bone marrow failure
• used to help treat leukemia and cancer patients
• used to treat low platelet count or other problems causing abnormally functioning platelets

Plasma:

• used during cardiac surgeries
• used to treat burn victims
• used to treat bleeding disorders when clotting factors are missing

Whole blood donations are the most popular form of blood donation and can be used to extract all of the above from your blood. I strongly encourage you to consider donating blood because you never know when you yourself might need some form of blood donation. The whole process can take about 30 minutes, but the actual blood donation can take as little as 5 minutes.

Think about it. You never know who's life you're saving.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead