Living Proof

Anticipatory Grief If you think back to a time when you were going through the roughest stage in your life, can you remember what pulled you through it? Do you remember how long you suffered for? If you were to have asked me a little over four months ago if I would be "OK" if my mom was going to pass away the next day, I wouldn't even entertain the thought. Even while my mother was in excruciating pain, I had hope that she would have gotten better. There was something telling me that this was the final stage. See, Mom kept a secret from me. This whole time I had thought she had stage two cancer. She was on stage four with no other options from her oncologist. She kept this secret to save me from killing myself. The month before she died, I got to take her to the shore, spend time with her, gave her a Mother's Day BBQ outside by the ocean with our family, and it was just magical. What happened next just spun my whole world around. I was having anticipatory grief. Mo...

There's no turning back now. They say grief comes in waves, but lately, it's been hitting me like a tsunami. I can't seem to catch my breath. I get it. She lived a full life -- she wasn't a 30 year old something lady, but let me ask you this: does it really matter? My mom was 79 years old, but she had all of her wits about her, she was funny and was always there for everyone. She was the least judgmental person I have ever known, unless you asked her for an opinion on a really ugly plaid blouse. (Yes, that would be me.) Nonjudgmental in terms of -- say if one of her daughters had a falling out. She would never side with either. She would always say, "Turn the other cheek and remember that's your sister." Nobody could do any wrong in her eyes. Everyone tells me that time will heal or that it just never heals. Some say it just gets worse, which scares the living daylights outta me. When I pray and meditate, everything seems OKAY -- everything seems like...

Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.             ― Fulton Oursler It's amazing how time flies. It only seems like yesterday when I was a little girl lying on the grass looking up at the sky with my older sisters without a care in the world. We never left the poolside in the summertime. My mom would come out with a huge tray of iced tea and sandwiches after a long morning of swimming and playing. My dad would normally get home from work at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. His big black van would swoop around the corner, and park nearby the pool area. He'd make a few snarky comments like, " Youz' have the life, you know dat?" He would chuckle and poke fun at us for a while, and then he'd go straight into the house and nap until around 6ish because of his long day working over at the fish market in NYC, to only have to wake up at 2am to do it all over again. We had so many friends come in and...

Yesterday, I was speaking to an atheist and I asked her, "Respectfully, why do you focus and write so much about something you don't even believe in?" And she gave me an answer I didn't expect. She wasn't angry, she wasn't trying to question her 2% of "what if there's a god" -- she was simply fed up with religious people hurting anyone who fails to fall in line with their exact beliefs. The mere fact that most religious folks will say "my" religion and "my" god as well as "believe what I believe or you're going to hell" is all associated with their ego. The ego thrives on being superior above all those who don't think, act or believe as they do. The ego needs to be "right" and the ego needs to tell their "truth" -- even if there are no factual bases on their "truth". It's just a faith built system that people feel comfortable believing in. Even though I believe with all my...

It hit me just this morning: I don't care. You know, as a part of my faith of being a Christian and trying to wrap my head around all of these horrific events that are taken place in the world, my thoughts on this is, I really don't care anymore. It sounds very 'gloom n' doom' -- but it's not supposed to come across that way. For instance: this world we live in is so very temporary. We're only here for a fraction of what it's like to be on the other side (whatever you deem to be the other side), so why does this place, this earth, this world, matter? I'm speaking in terms of being feared by terrorists, or getting freaked out by ebola becoming airborne and hitting the United States. What about Anton Nolen who just beheaded a co-worker after he had just gotten fired. He was trying to convert them to Islam and failed miserably. ISIS is here, or -- they've been living among us for a very long time. There are Muslim extremists who plan to behead...

There are so many unfortunate people suffering with cancer. We lost quite a few good ones this year from this awful disease.  I've heard and read quotes that say, "While we're all trying to lose weight and diet, someone out there is just trying to make it through another day of cancer." It makes dieting and worrying over weight so trivial. Makes it seem silly to want to lose weight or better your health -- cause you don't have cancer, so why go out of your way to "improve health"? I say, why not try to prevent it by diet alone? Then again, you hear about people who never smoked a cigarette a day in their lives and voila --- they got the big "C". It doesn't make any sense at all. You can diet all you want, but what's going to keep that tumor from growing on your brain? (I know, the hypochondriac in me…I think I have a headache now.) Even with me -- ever since I've been on Paleo, I've seen some real jerks who are apart of this g...