Time is a gift

Happy Monday,

How is everyone doing on this hot Monday evening? I hope wherever you are in the world you are safe. So many fires where I live. The sky is just covered in a haze with a sprinkle of soot here and there. Prayers for anyone affected by this catastrophe.

How was your weekend? I hope you were able to enjoy some down time, relaxing and hopefully making memories with loved ones. Shoot me a text or drop me a comment, I’d love to hear from you.

My weekend was a good one. Saturday I was up bright and early. I did a community yard sale and my wonderful future daughter in law came over and sold a bunch of her goodies. I’m happy for her. She made a nice little chunk of change which will go towards the little things she needs as she continues to put herself through nursing school. She graduate’s in December. Straight A’s her entire college career. She’s going to make one heck of a nurse. Her goal is to work labor and delivery. Can’t wait to celebrate her when she graduates.

After the yard sale, John and I went to see Beetlejuice 2. It was nice to have time together. Sunday I upped my dose of a medication, per doctors orders of course and holy heck, I was toast. The medication made me so nauseous and tired. Today I had to step back down to the lower dose. I’m still a little wonky, but feeling better then yesterday.

I received a message today, one that has me worried. My dear Aunt Billie suffered a heart attack yesterday. Thank goodness her grandson Kev was there. She made it to the hospital in time. Aunt Billie is someone I’ve always expected to be here. She always says “I’m gonna keep on truckin’, and that she does.

She’s 99 years young and my heart always tells me she’ll always be there, but my mind knows the truth. She’s 99. She’s promised to make it to 100 though. Birthday plans are already underway.

Aunt Billie has another great grandchild due to enter the world on her 100th birthday. I pray she makes it to see her new great grandson. Her family is her entire world and I’m not sure what any of us will do without her. She truly is a gift from God. She is the true matriarch of her family and she loves all of us unconditionally.

“One day we begin to realize just how precious time really is and that just because someone is here today doesn’t mean they’ll be here tomorrow. We realize that arguments are a waste of time and that each moment spent with loved ones will be cherished forever in our hearts.”-unknown.

While I’ve been busy today, Aunt Billie has been on my mind the entire time. I’ve been feeling her in everything I do today. She has always been the person I’ve felt most connected too in my family. My granny was an amazing woman. She was Aunt Billie’s baby sister, but I still had a closer connection with Aunt Billie.

Aunt Billie never judges anyone. She listens with an open heart, a clear mind and she always comes from a place of love and compassion. I love her so much and I pray she stays with us a little longer.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”-Marcus Aurelius.

My dear readers, I hope we can all take the time to reflect on our loved ones. As I sit here writing this blog, I think to myself, “you know how precious time is, why does it take something like this to make you realize how little time you have left with Aunt Billie?”

Aunt Billie has a lifetime of amazing adventures she loves to talk about. She worked on aircraft as one of her first jobs. She even worked on the B-52 fighter jet. She was self taught and rose the corporate ladder as a woman with no college degree. She is a woman I look up to, I always have.

“The most precious thing a human being has to give is time. There is so very little of it, after all, in a life.”-Edith Schaeffer.

The older folks in our lives have so much knowledge to offer up and they love to relive a lot of their stories. When I talk with Aunt Billie I always learn something new. I also see how brave of a woman she’s always been. When she was 18 she took the money she had saved and bought a one way ticket on a train from Albuquerque New Mexico to California. She got herself a job in aviation and built a lifelong career.

“The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.”-Andy Rooney.

Those words couldn’t be more true. I know sometimes we find ourselves getting frustrated with our older friends and family members, mostly because they tell us the same stories over and over again, but it’s in those stories they live and one day, it’s in those stories they’ll live on.

“All we have is the knowledge passed on to us by our elders, experiences we inculcate and hardly negate, but to bridge the generation gap, one needs to adapt to the new while retaining the goodness of the old.”-Sonali Bendre.

My dear readers, time is such a precious gift. We never know when it’s the last time we may speak to someone. We need to buy out the time for our loved ones, especially the older ones in our life. When we give someone our time, we’ve given them a portion of our life that we’ll never get back. That is a gift they hold onto with so much love and gratitude.

I was talking to a neighbor who is a dear friend this morning and she was telling me how in the mornings and at night, she gets lonely. I suppose those are the quiet times that surround us all, early morning and late night, but during the day, life is busy going on all around us, but it’s in those night time hours when we feel the silence of the world.

Talking with my friend today and hearing about Aunt Billie’s heart attack yesterday, I am writing tonight with gratitude for these two amazing ladies who are a part of my life. I also write this with the feeling of sadness, because I am coming to realize even more, life and time are precious gifts and sooner than later, the gift of one of the most amazing people in my life will come to an end.

Today is a gift, yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is the future. We never know when someone we love will become a memory. Take time to make a call and spend a few moments talking with someone who you know is alone. Take time to sit an have an ice tea with a neighbor or maybe invite them over for dinner. You never know how you might be the one person who brightened their day.

Time is a precious gift. I hope we can all use our time wisely. I hope we can all make amazing memories with those we love.

Well guys, I must get some sleep now. Morning is coming quite quickly and I have doctor appointments in San Diego tomorrow.

Thank you for stopping by and reading tonight’s blog. Until next time, don’t forget, Love Life++ Hugs.

Another glimpse into my book:

Mother beat me with a belt the day of my doctor’s visit. She was no longer someone who was in control of her anger. She just flung the belt, and wherever it landed, that’s where I was struck. I had welts on my body from those beatings. My legs, back, arms—even my stomach—were covered with welts. I suppose I was lucky she never connected with my face. I was beaten for something I never did. I never kissed David, nor any boy at that point in my life, but I still had to suffer a beating for it. 

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