"To this day" by Shane Koyczan

Stumbled across this video and i personally found it to be profound. So take the 12 or so minutes to really listen to what he says.

A little perspective

There is nothing like the near death of someone that you love to give you a little perspective on life and how you live it.

For the last month and a half my mom has been in and out of the doctors office, been put on various treatments and now has a bed in a NO VISITORS ward while they try and find an antibiotic that agrees with her body and will reduce the size of her liver.

I can't imagine how scary it all must be for a women like her who has raised 3 kids, seen 4 grandchildren and a great grandchild into this world (and all the noise it brings) to be so isolated from home. My mom is a home body, give her time in her yard and the company of any one of her sisters and she is in her element.

For me its a different kind of scary because i have never been faced with the thought of loosing my mom until now, i know she won't live forever but i at least hope she will be around to spend a few Christmas's at my house and help to usher my kids into the world so they are as fortunate as my nieces and nephew to call her theirs. Its scary to think how short life is and how we take the time for granted because we think we have plenty of it left, when in essence we don't have much.

I haven't been to see her yet; if i am honest i have just not had the heart to get on a plane and be there among my siblings and to visit her in a hospital of all places. She also tells me it's not necessary that i rush home because she is fine but i know that at the moment she is not fine, so i feel a bit like a bad daughter for not being strong enough to be there alone and be faced with the reality that time might run out sooner than i thought.

So with fear and all i have booked my tickets and gotten the time off work to go home; i am unsure of what to expect, unsure of what my arrival will be greeted with but i look forward to seeing my mother and having her enlighten me with quirky stories and lectures of hospitals and faith.

Let them dream, let them live

I see so many parents trying to mould their children into little versions of themselves, pushing their little ones into dreams that they themselves could not fulfil and forgetting that the child needs to find his/her own dreams in this world.

Kahlil Gibran says it perfectly;

Your children are not your children. 

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you, 

and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. 

For they have their own thoughts. 

You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 

For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. 

Kahlil Gibran

So let us not use our children in this life to live our dreams but rather encourage them every day so that they know they can live their own.   

Let us let them dream!