I will not use the color of my skin, my gender, my job, my level of education, or my abilities to exploit myself in any way for profit, for likes, for clicks, for jobs, or for promotion.
I will not blame others for my circumstances.
I will treat every stranger I meet with respect.
I will look everyone in the eye when speaking to them.
I will ask myself one question after I meet someone new for the first time: “What can this person teach me?” OR “How can I help this person?”
I will watch my language and my choice of words around my family and friends knowing how I speak can influence them, sometimes without even realizing it.
I understand that no human being is perfect, especially myself.
I will look for the good in every stranger I meet.
I think the word “respect” is not used enough and will show respect to every person I meet, regardless of their social status, their job, their appearance, their sexuality, their religion, their age or their gender.
I will donate my time when I am not able to donate money.
I will take full responsibility for my actions, even if I hurt someone because I made a poor decision.
I will forgive those who have done me harm or done my loved ones harm.
I will not use social media to spread false information; I will research the truth and the facts.
I understand life is precious.
I believe my actions speak louder more than my words ever could.
I will use my time on earth to live a positive life and not let others bring me down.
I will start everyday with a prayer for people who don’t pray.
I will never boast about any good deed I do.
I will say thank you when I am given a compliment.
I will listen more than speak.
I will stand up for myself to those who try to tear me down with words or actions.
I will not believe everything I see on TV, everything I see in print, and everything I hear on the radio. I understand in this imperfect world that there are dishonest people and sometimes their voices are louder than the honest ones.
I will be honest in all things, even if the truth hurts myself or someone I love.
I will not judge those who are different than me. I will not assume what I don’t understand. I will not ignore what I wish I didn’t hear or see.
I will laugh and smile as often as I am able.
If I wake up everyday able to smile, even if I have lost the ability to speak, or walk, or hear, or see, I will do my best to fight to keep smiling as long as God gives me time.
I will encourage all young people to live their dream, no matter how many times they are told NO.
I will tell everyone who has a voice that although their voice might be small, they can make a big difference.
I understand positive and good and wonderful and joyful are not words that make headlines. But positive and good and wonderful and joyful events and people live in this world and do great things everyday. It’s just small number of people who insist on spreading negative and bad and evil.
I believe if violence can spread, that means the opposite action can happen. And that means there is more opportunity for GOOD to overcome the bad. And set the world right. And maybe one day the bad will be conquered and good will prevail.
I believe at the end of my life, I will think “I could have done more. I should have done more. I would have done more…”.
I know in my life now, I can do more. I should do more. And I will continue to do more.
I believe if everyone wrote their own personal creed, and lived it, there would be better days ahead.
My mom passed away one year ago today and ever since, I have been adding a little bit here and there to this blog post, knowing I’d want to publish something on the anniversary of her death.
At first I was going to write about her life. And maybe someday I will. But now right now. Today I want tell you the journey she took to her final resting place.
She was diagnosed in August of 2009 with a rare type of T-cell lymphoma. She had already been displaying strange symptoms since March of that year but it took months of tests to finally diagnose her. After 6 rounds of chemotherapy, she was declared to be in remission by her oncologist. We celebrated that Thanksgiving. It seemed it was a miracle, although we were warned this type of cancer could come back in a few years and chemo might not work.
That news did not deter my Mom from living her life as “wild” as a 62year old could. She spent as much time doing things she enjoyed and said YES a lot more than she said NO. She would babysit my nephews more often. She would attend my nephews baseball games and come with us to Cedar Point and went to every wedding and graduation party she was invited to. Lots of lunches and dinners with friends and family as often as possible.
In June of 2012, she started having symptoms again. This time, all the tests came back negative for lymphoma. But it was obvious to all of us, and her, that something wasn’t right. This time instead of a cough and a rash, it was stomach pain. And back pain. And loss of her voice. Although her voice never completely went away, it was probably one of the worst things to happen to her. See, she was quite the gabber. She talked to my sister every morning over the phone for years! She’d chat with friends over lunch, she’d chat with her customers at the bridal store she worked at. That was all gone once she lost her voice. Not to mention the pain she was in was heartbreaking to witness.
Now, I’d come downstairs to see her in the recliner, sleeping, or trying to sleep, and in pain. The worst was the feeling of hopelessness as you watch someone in pain and there’s nothing you can say or do to help. Too sick to go to work. Too tired to go anywhere. Too weak to even move off the recliner. This went on for most of the summer until August when removal of her lymph node confirmed that her cancer was back. It had been a frustrating time since every other test did not show the cancer. But her oncologist said it was the type that hides. Well, it stayed hidden for months.
The chemo this time around was changed slightly to treat the cancer. And after a few treatments it seemed to be working. As anyone who knows someone or is on chemo will tell you, it’s like a rollercoaster. She had her good weeks when she was able to have enough energy to shop and visit with friends and she had bad weeks when it took many days to recover from the chemo.
By the time Christmas came around, it seems as though she took a turn for the worse. It became harder for her to breathe and she seemed weak. She didn’t want to sleep for fear of not waking up. She slept downstairs in the recliner and there was always someone with her at all times. A few days before Christmas she went into the hospital and it didn’t look good. We weren’t sure she would be home for Christmas at all. But she was determined. She knew the situation wasn’t good but she also knew she didn’t want to die in a hospital. She insisted to her doctor that she was going to go home. I believe his initial reaction was, “We’ll see.” But my Mom was quite stubborn. There was no way she was going to miss Christmas.
The situation was so grim, that she actually sat with me in the hospital and told me her final wishes. It wasn’t really a conversation. It was definitely one-sided as she spoke and I cried. She told me the dreams she had for me, she told me how she knew everyone would be okay but that we should look after each other. She did say something quite funny actually: “Michelle, oh you don’t need any man in your life so you’ll be okay.” 🙂 Thanks Mom, ha!
But she also said some sad things like “I don’t think Sean will remember me.”
“I don’t have any regrets in my life…but I do feel like I’m being cheated a little bit. I really wanted to watch Matthew play baseball one more time.”
“I’ve never been afraid of dying and I’ve always been a faithful person…but I’m wondering where is my faith right now?”
“I know this last round of chemo won’t save me. But if I could just have a few more months…”
Well, God heard her prayers, all of our prayers. Because the next day she got the all clear to come home.
The first thing she insisted on doing when we got her home was to finish wrapping the Christmas gifts. She could barely lift the scissors and the tape but she insisted. She was adamant about celebrating Christmas. It was always her favorite holiday, especially to see the look on my nephews faces as they opened up their gifts. And us too.
As we celebrated Christmas that year, it was clear this was going to be her last. You didn’t want to think about it, you didn’t want to believe it. But you knew. And you knew that she knew.
January and February of 2013 were pretty good. We actually had hope for a little bit. The best was when her voice came back. I came down the stairs to the sound of my Mom on the phone with my Aunt. I said, “Your voice Mom!!! It’s back!” She was glowing, she was so excited. It was the first REAL evidence that there was some hope here.
But, most of the time, you could tell she didn’t want to get her hopes up too high. None of us did. I always prayed for her to be healed. To be cured. I couldn’t help but think, “Are my prayers just being ignored? What gives?”
Mom had one more GREAT day. She got to spend it with my aunt at the casino downtown and eating Paczki on Fat Tuesday. She said to my Aunt, “This was the best time I’ve had.” She took this picture of her in the car, with her paczki of course.
Fat Tuesday with a Paczki!
It was literally a week or two later that she was fine one day and bad the next. You always hear about how that happens and you always think, “Oh I’m sure they’re exaggerating.” No really, she was really okay one day and the next day she couldn’t breathe. She went in to get the fluid drained from around her lungs and her heart and while she was there she sent all of us a text that said: “Hospice worker coming at one. Can you come?”
Well that pretty much knocked the wind out of me. It was one thing for one of US to think about hospice. But when SHE is initiating it…that changes the ball game.
Ironically, when we all walked in around the same time, my Mom looked better than ever. She looked like she never had cancer. It was the strangest sight. The hospice worker even looked at her like, “Ummm…are you sure you need hospice?”
But that was our Mom’s gift to us. She knew none of us would ever recommend or even say the word hospice unless she said it first. It had to be her decision.
It was clear from talking to hospice that Mom wasn’t quite there yet and she had options.
She came home the next day though and we thought, “Okay maybe she has more time than we thought. Maybe this isn’t so bad.”
About a week later, she was back in the hospital again. This time she couldn’t breathe again, and needed to be drained, again. But as soon as they drained her, shortly thereafter, the fluid was back. It was getting to be too much and they couldn’t keep up with the drainage.
She needed to be put into a wheelchair to get back into the car. And when she came home we needed to help her into the house. That’s when she changed right in front of my eyes.
Her voice became tiny and high pitched, and she said her legs felt “weird” and she said she was ashamed and embarrassed that she needed a wheelchair to get into her own house. We told her not to worry about it but you could tell the life that was inside her was diminishing. I looked at her for the first time and she looked like she aged 20 years in that minute.
Two days later she asked for hospice. She sat there with me and told me “This is no way to live. Call hospice, it’s time.” I didn’t argue with her. I don’t think I even cried. I was more just in shock that this was happening.
I stopped praying for healing or a cure. I knew it wasn’t because God wasn’t answering my prayer, He was trying to tell me I was praying for the wrong thing. This time, I prayed for her to go home.
3 days later, she took her last breath with my Dad at her side. Those three days were quite possibly the most beautiful moments as well as the most awful three days of my life. No one should have to see a loved one dying in front of them. But there were moments from that weekend I will never forget and some day I will write a nice long post about it.
Until then, I take comfort in the memories I have of my beautiful mother. The notes she left us that we found at Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. The pictures of her around this huge empty house. The sound of her voice and her laugh that I still have on saved voicemails and videos. And of course, the look on people’s faces when they speak about her. I have given up trying to tell people how amazing she was. They simply will never know her and as much as it hurts and pains me to know that YOU will never know who she was, it’s okay now. She lives on in me and my sister and my brother and my nephews. So if you ever want to get to know her, just ask me.
A few weeks after my bodybuilding competition, around Halloween, my sister Nicole and my nephews, Matthew age 11 and Sean age 5, came over to hang out. My sister all of a sudden had a desire to decorate the house like our Mom used to.
My mom was beyond festive. She decorated the house for every holiday. It was adorable and sweet and so fun to walk into the house, even around St. Patrick’s Day, and see little shamrocks everywhere and the house decorated in green decorations. You know how most people just have boxes in their basement labeled “Christmas”? Yeah, we have ones labeled “Easter” Valentine’s Day” “Memorial Day” “Halloween.” You get the drift.
So Nicole started bringing up boxes from the basement and in the closets that were labeled “Halloween/Thanksgiving.”
She opens up the first box, reaches in…and sees a little note with my Mom’s handwriting on it. “Take care of each other, Love Mom” was written on it.
We were just in awe. It was of course a bit of a shock to see my Mom’s writing on something in a decoration box of all places. But we assume she must have thought “Well, they’ll have to go through this box at some point” to ensure that we found it. It was such a last-minute decision to even decorate the house, knowing we couldn’t do it justice like Mom did, that I almost thought it was luck that we even found it.
Nicole took the note home and rightfully so. None of us thought we would find any more…until…
Fast forward to just after Thanksgiving.
My sister and I decide we are going to try to bake my Mom’s dessert bread. This bread is very special. It’s a recipe my Mom found years ago when we were little and she made it for her friends for Christmas and she made it for Easter too. This was HER bread. And it tasted amazing!
Nicole and I baked 4 loaves and they turned out just like Mom’s!!! They are a little gummy in the middle but I recall she had that problem too sometimes. No big deal. Slap some butter on that and you don’t even notice. My nephews tasted it too and they agreed: “Just like G used to make.”
While we waited for the bread to rise, I asked my sister if she and the boys would help me put ornaments on the Christmas tree. It’s been kind of hard to get in the festive spirit but we put on some Christmas music and started opening up the ornament boxes.
Guess what we found in the first box? Yes, another note from Mom!! She actually wrote it in 2011, just a quick little line about “I’ll always be near you.” Then she wrote underneath that note in 2012. “I miss all of you.” At first I thought she just got the years wrong but Nicole and I think she just wanted to write notes even when she wasn’t sick, just in case.
We hung up the ornaments and I went through some other boxes of decorations to see if I could start to put things up around the house.
I immediately started looking for this mailbox she had. It has a snowman on it and it’s pretty big but small enough that she kept it on our island in the kitchen. She would put little toys or pieces of candy in there for the boys. So everytime they came over, she’d say “Check the mailbox!” She always had two of everything she bought – one for Matthew one for Sean.
Well, I found the mailbox. And you know of course I thought to myself “There’s gonna be a note in here.”
Of course there was. 🙂
And it was intended for Matthew and Sean. It was dated January 16th of this year and it says “I’ll always love you. “G”
I quickly put the mailbox on the island so the boys wouldn’t see and I went back into the family room and said “I found the mailbox, why don’t you guys see what’s inside?”
So they walked over and opened it up expecting to find candy or something from me…Sean can’t read of course but Matthew saw it and started to smile. I told them “Go show your Mom.” So they went over to Nicole who didn’t even know I had found the mailbox and they showed it to her.
Poor Sean asked “What does it say??” None of us, not even Matthew, could get the words out, we were so choked up. I finally blurted out “Do you recognize that letter?” And he said “Yeah it’s a G.” I said “That’s right, that’s from G. It says that she’ll always love you.”
And of course my sister just kind of cried and I started to tear up but I didn’t want Sean to think I was sad and it was interesting because his reaction was sort of joyful. Almost as if he thinks “Well duh of course she misses me.” My mom’s big concern was that Sean would not remember her and I assured her he would.
He probably mentions her more than any of us at really random times. I think my Mom speaks to him through him. I wouldn’t doubt it. He dreams about her a lot too.
Since that night I have found one more note in a wreath box that was dated in 2011 as well.
It was so nice having this little treasure hunt of sorts around this time of year. It’s obviously the first Christmas without her so it’s been a little difficult. But knowing she left these notes for us to find after she was gone has helped ease the pain.
This Christmas, as my family and I sit down to dinner, we’ll attempt to make it as festive as we can. It won’t be the same but now we can tuck these notes away and take a look at them when we miss her the most, and see that she’s still here.
Watching, making sure we’re taking care of each other, knowing that she will always love us.
This post is going a bit way off subject from the theme of my blog but I’m sure you will all forgive me this one time.
The subject is writing – And yes even though this is a blog, it’s far from what I would consider writing for me. I used to write on a regular basis. And by write I mean writing actual words on a piece of paper with a writing utensil, not typing. In fact it’s one of the jobs I thought I would actually have as an adult when I graduated college. I wanted to write ads. Even after my internship at an advertising agency I still had the “itch” to write but I suppose I had a bigger itch to move to Chicago and see what life was like there. And writing took a backseat.
This past weekend I went on a retreat for people in their 20’s and 30’s who are going through a “Transition.” It was advertised in my church bulletin a couple months ago and I recall telling my Mom that I really wanted to attend this retreat and she was so happy for me.
Everyone who knew my Mom, knew she always prayed for anyone in need. When she was first diagnosed with lymphoma in 2009, she received so many cards from friends and family praying for her and sending her well wishes. Lo and behold, months later she was in remission. The prayers were answered. This last time around was no different. Cards came pouring in. We kept all of them and I read them to her shortly before she passed at her bedside.
But what was the most amazing thing is that my Mom herself sent cards and prayed quite frequently – Thank You Cards, Birthday Cards, Just a note to say Hi cards…you name it, she sent them.
So this weekend while I was at the retreat, we had alot of quiet reflection time where we wrote answers to questions regarding the subject matter we had just heard. Then we discussed what we thought. Well, I didn’t do much writing at all because I did better “talking” my thoughts rather than writing them.
But then on the last day of the retreat, we were asked to write our own Personal Creed. I sat in my room and just started free thinking…free writing? Scribbling down some thoughts here and there and before you knew it I had a rough draft. The rest came pretty easily to me. So here it is!
My Creed
Sorry it’s so small but if you click on it you should be able to see it.
I’m pretty happy with it. The best part was sharing it with my small group and getting their feedback which was all positive. The only question I got was: “Is this how you see yourself living your life NOW? Or is it a goal of how you WANT to live your life?”
Before she even finished the question I answered: “It’s the goal, this is how I want to live.”
I suppose it’s come full circle: Even though I’m not at my goal yet of being “stage-ready,” I’m constantly working to get there. As with my faith, although I am not living this Creed at this moment, I feel like I’m getting closer to it. I would have to say Mom has a lot to do with it. I definitely felt her presence at the retreat.
Before I end, I must share this random cute story:A co-worker of mine found my Mom’s prayer card from the wake on the seat of her car as she headed into work this morning. Funny thing is, she has no idea how it got there. I had given her a thank you card with my Mom’s prayer card INSIDE of it, but she didn’t even see it. The best part is, she was having a bad day so seeing my Mom’s smiling face on her car seat gave her a little boost to her day. My mom has that effect on people, even now. 🙂
The Joyful Celibate 