Thoughts - In Honor

Today and tomorrow mark a year since my Dad and Grandma passed away. It feels both fresh and ancient, the heartbreak. Worn in and raw, all at the same time. This distance away from those two days last year seems unbelievable. How could we have already lived 365 days without them so quickly? It kind of takes my breath away.

But we have lived. And we've done it while crying and closing the door on the day. While being filled to the brim with joy and happiness. While laughing, often. And while telling the world to piss off a time or two. All in the last 365 days. 

And without wanting to, we've come to the first anniversary. And geez, doesn't that sound so ridiculous? The first anniversary...it makes me want to shove a big foot in the face of anyone who calls it that, mine included. So, how do I approach this point in time? How do I refer to these days without sounding morose and dramatic? Without making it depressing? Without reliving the overwhelming sad occasion of their deaths? How do I get through these days?

Well...I'm just going to do it. Seriously. I have a choice. My choice is to be happy through these days. Just like my choice has been to fill these last 365 days, and each day that follows, with as much goodness, love, hope, excitement, joy, hugs, laughter and peace as I can squeeze in. I haven't succeeded every day and I won't succeed every day to follow, but I will exhaust myself trying.

Why? Because we all have beautiful and horrible moments, periods, phases, in life. They happen and we react accordingly. However, in the large scheme of our lifetime, those moments, periods, phases, don't last nearly as long as the stuff in between those great highs and devastating lows. The stuff - the life- in between those times is where our hearts live most deeply. And in that time our hearts rejoice, repair, reflect. Our hearts live in the schedules and the day-to-day. Our hearts take in the small moments that later become the defining moments of our lives. Shouldn't we do our very, very best to make those moments our precious and most special moments? Shouldn't we go out of our way to live in this instant? To soak it into our fibers and imprint it onto our hearts? 

We have a choice. We all have a choice - no matter what the circumstance. We can choose to do a small thing. We can choose to do a big thing. We can choose. The gift of this life is our gift of choice. 

I choose to smile today. And tomorrow. And beyond. I choose to live in my happy memories of my amazing Father and my precious Grandmother.

I choose happy.

Cares