OK so my posts have been rather light and humourous\u2026or at least for me they have been.\u00a0 Thought I\u2019d jump into deeper waters today and have a serious post on saying goodbye.<\/p>\n
In my short life (oh yes I said it SHORT \u2013 meaning I\u2019m not old) I\u2019ve had a few people pass away that I never had a chance to say goodbye. By that I mean to have a conversation with them that would allow me the chance to tell them how I felt, how they impacted my life and so on.\u00a0 Probably it\u2019s me\u00a0maturing and realizing what these people meant\u00a0to me and in fact it was several years after the fact that it came to me.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ve went to the gravesite of a few of them and had a conversation so to speak but it\u2019s really not the same.<\/p>\n
What do you do \u2013 in your life now \u2013 to make sure people know how they feel to you? Do you tell them what impact they have on your life \u2013 do you tell them you love them?\u00a0 I grew up in a home where feelings weren\u2019t really shared or talked about so it was quite foreign to me. I handled some deaths where I should have been supportive to people very awkwardly \u2013 and I know it\u2019s never easy but in particular one special person to me lost her Dad and I didn\u2019t know how to handle it. This person said something to me about it (how I acted) and I think that flicked the switch for me. It\u2019s been a long slow process of turning the Titanic around to be more aware & living in the moment \u2013 which is a process I practice, practice, practice.<\/p>\n
Seems in the last year there have been several people die that are close to my age which is quite the reality wake up. Just in the last month a girl I went to High School with died suddenly \u2013 I was so shocked simply for the reason she was only 2 years older than me\u2026.You know I\u2019ve always got you could die in a car accident, get hit by a bus but like many people you don\u2019t really register that \u2013 mostly because we all don\u2019t want to die!!<\/p>\n
I realize this is part of my personality of wanting to be prepared \u2013 about 15 years ago I made a funeral plan \u2013 what I wanted for music, where it should be held, so on \u2013 and then I laid it away.\u00a0 A few years passed and I found it and threw it away \u2013 scared me to think about my own mortality. I had a very interesting conversation with my Dad & Bonus Mom this summer \u2013 about where they want to be \u2018spread\u2019 (no burials for them just the big fire \u2013 and I jest about this as they, thankfully, have a very good attitude about it and are not afraid to discuss) \u2013 my bonus Mom made a comment about possessions and what happens to it all \u2013 really got me thinking about all the \u201ccollections\u201d I have and really what are they for? Who will want them when I die \u2013 or will my children go through my stuff and say \u201cWhat the hell did she keep this for?\u201d.\u00a0 Which I\u2019ve teased my Mom about terribly as she\u2019s a \u2018keeper\u2019 (I come by it honestly).\u00a0 So I\u2019m looking at my stuff with hard eyes \u2013 and doing a lot more donating to the Salvation Army \u2013 recycling papers that haven\u2019t been touched in eons.<\/p>\n
I have a very dear friend of mine who was diagnosed with cancer of the saliva glands just this past December. She had a huge lump taken from her cheek\/chin area and made it through to her 3 month check up \u2013 good news everything looked clear. Tuesday she had her 6 month check up and the cancer has returned \u2013 this is such a hard blow as she\u2019s a solid rock person in my life. Another operation is scheduled and she\u2019s optimistic. Watching her go through this in her life is utterly amazing \u2013 she\u2019s embracing life and allows herself time to breakdown & be sad but as she told me she\u2019s not allowing herself to be a victim to cancer.<\/p>\n
The lesson learned from those people I never had the chance to talk with & let them know how special they were to me (Grandma & Grandpa Keel, Grandma & Grandpa Ross, Elmer Neitz, Billy & Wally Johnson, Brian Kurys, Margaret Dayton)\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned to tell people what they mean to me, tell them I love them, hug them and be gracious in what they share with me. I hope all of you\u00a0that are reading my blog can learn those same lessons \u2013 now go and tell someone what they mean to you!!<\/p>\n
Love Shannon<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OK so my posts have been rather light and humourous\u2026or at least for me they have been.\u00a0 Thought I\u2019d jump into deeper waters today and have a serious post on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithcrew.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}