The gift of time...

I wanted to clarify some thing from my last post...I know that we are given the gift of time each day that we are here on earth...heck I could narrow that down to each second that we are here as we never know when our time on earth here will be done. I know that we are given the chance to live our lives the best that we can be, to love one another, to forgive one another, and to take the time to say that we're sorry or "I love you." But, I know that there are times in our lives that some of us tend to hold grudges or have them held against us and that can be hurtful on either side. I look at the relationship with my Dad that for a long time after he left my Mom, I couldn't bare to talk to him. It hurt too much and he refused to look at the hurt that he was causing to our family...it was only all about him and the rest of us just had to get over it. I looked at how selfish he was being and for my own good, I had to quit talking to him for a long time. When I talked to him, I lashed out at Andy for days on end and I had horrid mood swings. When I quit talking to him I was absolutely fine. Or so I thought. A few months later, I had the thought of "what happens if something happens to Daddy on the road and you never get a chance to talk to him again?" I knew then that it was only myself that I was hurting. I'd live with that guilt for the rest of my life if he died or something major happened and I never got the chance to tell him how I felt or that I was sorry for hurting him. It was around that time that I realized that we only hurt ourselves by holding grudges or refusing to forgive someone. My Daddy and I talked shortly after I came to these realizations and we both had a good cry and were able to tell each other that we were sorry. I knew then that we'd never have the relationship that we once did because of some of the things that he's said and done to the family, but I knew that I had made an effort and I put our relationship into God's hands. We talk now almost every week and while some subjects are still hard for us, we've made peace with one another and I'm glad that we are in each other's lives again.

I know that when my Grandma had cancer (the first time) and thought she was dying. She called the whole family over to apologize to them. She wound up having a mental breakdown. Grandma had 8 kids and they lost a little baby girl, Dale Ann, when she was only a year and a half old. Dale Ann had gotten really sick and the doctor told my Grandma to give her some aspirin for her fever. The doctor told Grandma to give her too much and Grandma not knowing...did what the doctor told her to do. Dale Ann died shortly after that. Nobody in the family knew that Grandma had been dealing with the guilt from that incident all of her life. When she thought that she was dying from her first bout with cancer, she cried out about that and how it was all her fault and she apologized to all her kids about ever spanking them or hurting them. It was heartbreaking to see her like that. But, afterwards and a lot of shed tears on all of our parts, there was a big peace. She needed her time to confess that to her children and her husband and she needed to know from her children's standpoint that they didn't hold her responsible or hold any resentment or grudge against her. It was a healing time for everyone involved. Shortly after that, we found out that she was in remission from her cancer. But, she also told us that if she ever got it again, she wasn't fighting it as chemo and radiation had been too much for her. We got 6 more precious years with her after that before the cancer came back. But, I think when people have terminal illnesses...it makes you really look at your life and what you want people to know. It shouldn't take that to make people acknowledge certain mistakes that they've made or to tell someone how much they really mean to you...but at least if people finally talk about it in their final days...they were given the gift of saying it or being forgiven for something and along with that comes peace. That's all I was really trying to say in the aspect of wanting the chance to say my good-byes when my time comes. I want my family and friends to know how much I love them and that I'm sorry for anything wrong I've done towards them. And I just think being given that gift to say it one last time is one awesome gift to the person who is sick and for those who love them.