Zestful Blog Post #132
This post is to honor two friends recently lost to cancer,
Jeanne Bates Smith and Sandra Moran Pletcher. It’s also in honor of you, my
reader, and yes, my friend.
Here’s the whole of it. When a marvelous human being too
soon leaves the building for good, we grieve hard. Then we have to figure out
what to do next. If we lose our joy, that’s letting cancer—or whatever disease
or disaster—win. If we focus on disbelief, if we keep insisting things ought to
be the way they were before, that’s making that person as gone as can be. It’s giving
death everything.
To change darkness into light:
When you do your best work, smile, because she’s right there
with you, because she did her best work.
When you speak and behave honestly and kindly, feel happy,
because she did so.
When you make an effort to understand—to really extend
yourself—be joyful, because she did so.
When you do anything your beloved person did, with integrity
and a true heart, laugh, because she or he is there with you.
When you
act like a goof;
taste/smell/touch/hear/see something that person liked;
get out for a walk or a jog or a swim;
create something for the hell of it;
make a mistake (yes, of course);
try to fix something;
be joyful, because.
I said to Marcia the other night as we grieved our friends, “I
guess the pie of life is like this: half work, half love, and half chocolate.”
Don’t start with me about math.
Time gets us all. But it can’t steal our joy. So do the work
now. Give more love now. And don’t forget the chocolate.
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