She made her dash count August 30, 2007
Posted by makingyourdashcount in Healing Yourself, Life Journey, memorials, mourning, Wilkes-Barre.trackback
If one were to sum up mom’s legacy in a line, it would not be about her high school students, although many of them tell us that having her as a teacher was a life changing experience. It would not be about her mothering; she was as good of a mom as any 60’s generation mom was. Her legacy, as relayed by a former student teacher was,
“…(she) taught life, and how to get the most from it, and how to not let it get the most of you.”
So far I’ve written over 100 thank you notes. I wrote a eulogy of sorts. I wrote an obituary. I have written for other people. Now it’s time to write for myself.
Mom.
She knew that life changes instantaneously. We don’t choose the changes and we can’t stop the changes. They just happen and we have no real choice but to deal with them, because not dealing with it them is tantamount to burying our heads in the sand. Mom was never an ostrich.
She never won the lottery or found an unexpected inheritance. Her life changes were never so joyous. Instead, she first lost her oldest son to AIDS, standing by him all the way from diagnosis to demise, then her youngest to manslaughter. When my daughter died, she lost her oldest grandchild. She dealt with repurcussions of business failures. She dealt with a diagnosis of cancer. All through this, she left a legacy of facing life and not letting it get the best of you. Mom was always in the driver’s seat.
The world still goes on, even if we choose not to. So we deal with life changes, whether we like them or not.
Making your Dash Count 
Betsey, I so respect and appreciate your teaching. Thank you for offering the world your perspective — so considered, so enlightened, and so articulate.