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Hearts at Home
Lately, my black dresses have gotten more of a workout than I would like. I have attended 2 funerals within a month and will most likely be attending another one within the next several weeks or months. The first funeral was for my grandmother who was 91 years old. She gave me my first bath and I held her hand as she took her last breath. We were not expecting her death to come as quickly as it did, but her health and her mind had been deteriorating over the years. The second funeral was for a friend of mine who would have been 53 this week. Her death took me completely by surprise and left me with guilt, regret and a call to action. I call her a dear friend, even though we had not seen each others in years, so I did not know that her breast cancer from 8 years ago had come back with a vengeance. She had been on my mind, but everyday life had taken priority over catching up with a friend, and I was left with saying good-bye to a casket.
When you go to a funeral there is the usual looking back at the person's life. What they did, what was important to them, whose lives they touched. It gives one cause to examine your own life and wonder what sort of impact you are making on the world around you. We can get caught up in all we haven't done or relive past victories, but both robs us of today. We can also get caught up in what we like about ourselves or what we don't like about ourselves, but neither one really embraces all of who we are. None of us are perfect, but we all have a special place in the world. We all have our own unique set of gifts, quirks and challenges, that make us perfectly suited for what God wants us to do. And chances are we are uniquely suited to touch someone's life in just the way they needed it. We may or may not know how many lives we touch or how deeply, but we can do our best to love ourselves and therefore love others around us deeper. We cannot give away what we do not have, so the more we love our own uniqueness, the better we can love and appreciate others.
I still have a long way to go, but I am having a few more moments where I realize I'm a pretty cool person. And I'm learning to shorten the times for my pity parties. (Don't want to shorten too much though since I'm vertically challenged, but that means I can wear sassy heels!)
