An Ending or A Beginning?

One of my clients is closing his office.  Not exactly what he was planning to do this year, but that is what developed due to some changes in his business that caused financial uncertainty.  His professional and personal life was already moving in another direction, but he did not expect to close his office this soon.  At first the unexpected fluctuations of his business income worried him and he became agitated and anxious, but then he realized that his life was moving away from that sort of work anyway so he embraced the unexpected changes and chose to make bold, dramatic moves that propelled him into his next phase of life.

I admire his brave leap into the future and his excitement about the uncertainty that lies ahead.  Change has usually terrified me.  I clung to what was routine, predictable (if anything can be predictable) and safe, or what I thought was safe.  Fortunately, for several years now, I've been moving away from that limited and frightened view of life.  Every ending is a new beginning, but I sometimes forget or ignore that.  I think most of us concentrate on the ending part and overlook the new beginning that follows closely on its heels.  Our emphasis on what we are leaving behind overshadows all the possibilities in the future and while we gaze backwards at a closing door, we don't see all the doors opening on the path ahead.  Not every opportunity waits indefinitely for us.  If we don't act promptly and with confidence, the Universe assumes we are not ready, which obviously we aren't, and closes the door.  That door may or may not open again, but even if it does, it will be further down the road - a road that may be rougher and more challenging than it needed to be.

I saw my client welcome what was ahead, even when he did not know what that would be.  He made decisions swiftly and is now poised to close the door and walk into a future that is uncertain, but exciting and full of unknown possibilities.  To move forward boldly meant that first he had to be aware of the signs the Universe was sending him.   He chose not to fight the changes and embraced them instead, moving happily in the direction they led.  Now he is full of excitement and anticipation and is relieved to be releasing so many responsibilities that had been weighing him down.

Watching him reminds me to look for signs of changes and shifts, to stay open to unknown possibilities, to remain optimistic and courageous, to look forward with aniticipation and not backwards with regret or sadness.  My client reminds me of a dog I saw today that was soaked by a sudden rainshower.  Just as that dog shook off the rain and trotted forward without a worry about the wetness that had taken him by surprise, my client shook of the unexpected financial storm and is trotting down the path to his next life adventure.  His action is bold, brave and inspirational.  Shouldn't we all strive to embrace change with that same sense of adventure?

4/28/12 Good-bye, Mom

My mom died last night.  Well, she was really my step-mother, but the only mom I ever knew.  I expected her to die from cancer.  She had uterine cancer about 10 years ago, went through radiation and chemotherapy, had every side-effect listed for both, and almost died several times from her treatments rather than the cancer.  Her life was spared, but the chemo left her with nerve damage in both legs and hands.  For ten years she walked with braces, also using a wheelchair from time to time.  Last October she was diagnosed with cancer in one lung and both breasts and had a blood clot in one leg.  I thought it was too much for someone in her 80's to survive all that, but she did.  More surgeries, more radiation, many hospital and nursing home stays between October and February and the dreaded chemo again, but this time in pill form.  Additional questionable spots and even a large mass were discovered a few weeks ago.  Again, I was braced for the word “incurable”, but, instead, she was declared cancer-free.  The new areas of concern needed to be watched closely, but were not malignant.  The areas discovered in October were cured.  She was ecstatic.  She quickly made appointments to get new braces for her legs, new glasses and new dentures - all things she had put off after the cancer detection last year.  All during her treatments she did not want me to come visit (she lived more than 500 miles from me).  “No, no,” she said over and over, “What are you going to do - sit and watch me?  No, wait until I am better.”  So, I waited.  After the good news two weeks ago, I told her I’d come visit soon and again she said, ‘Wait.  Let me get all these appointments out of the way.  Maybe in May or June.”  So, I waited.  I was in the grocery store this morning when I got a call from her good friend who chauffeured her to doctor appointments and the store when she was too sick or too weak to drive.  She did not answer the door this morning when his wife went to visit.  The door was mysteriously unlocked.  His wife found my mom dead on the floor by her bed.  Groceries still sat in her unlocked car.  All signs indicate a heart attack.  Not how we expected her to go, but certainly a better way to leave this world than dying slowly from cancer, consumed with pain and drugs.   

My step-mom and my dad divorced when I was four and she took their daughter, my younger sister, and moved back to her home state of Maine.  She raised my sister as a single mom when single motherhood was an oddity.  She had a career as a state court reporter, started her own court reporting business and later owned a printing shop.  From the middle of my junior year of high school through my senior year, I lived with her and my sister.  I am so grateful that she allowed me to live with them at a rough time in my life.   

My mom was a tough old bird - a real fighter.  She was headstrong and believed she could do anything she put her mind to and she usually did.  In the 40's and 50's, she was an award-winning bicycle racer at a time with most women only won baking contests.  I remember in the early 1970's, her house needed a new roof.  The estimates she got for the work were too high for her wallet, so she went to the library and checked out books on shingle roofing and taught herself how to re-roof a house.  Back then she was in her 40's and she spent Saturdays and Sundays for a month carrying shingles up a ladder and nailing them to the roof.  She completed the job and the roof never once leaked.  Later, in her unfinished basement, she, by herself, built a laundry room and a family room with a fireplace.  As long as there was a library book to tell her how, she could make or do almost anything.  Even recently, in her 80's with legs in braces and still fighting the cancer that was diagnosed in October, she missed one of my phone calls because she was mowing her yard.  Yes, “tough” was the word that described her aptly.

Tough is good when you want to re-roof a house or build a room, but not always the best attribute for relationships.  She was opinionated and inflexible and could hold a grudge like no one else I knew, other than my father.  No wonder their marriage only lasted two years! Neither ever married again and all eligible men and women in their age group should be thankful.  Neither one was willing to compromise and adapt the way that marriage requires.  Most other relationships also require a bit of give and take and her unwillingness to do that left her with very few close friends or family. 

We were always in contact and I loved her very much, even when she was difficult to love.  I am grateful for the example she provided of a strong, independent woman, but, truthfully, some of the best lessons I learned from her were the ones that taught me how I did not want to be.  The same was true of my dad.  I saw what I did not like in them and chose to be different.  Not every life lesson is delivered as something positive.   

Both my dad and my step-mom were hard workers.  They toiled and toiled and had minor successes and colossal failures.  As Americans and as children of the Great Depression, they held industriousness and the stuff it could buy in high esteem and thought nothing of value could ever be obtained except by hard work.  And, yet, both ended up with more estranged relationships than money in the bank.  My mom leaves a houseful of things - most of which no one wants and which I and her few friends will have to dispose of.  Is life supposed to be only about hard work  - often work we do not even enjoy - just so we can leave behind stuff that few people want or value?  Shouldn’t the number of people at one’s funeral outnumber the boxes of junk in one’s house?   

And, what does this have to do with Manifesting Mount Dora?  A lot.  Priorities are important.  Knowing what truly counts in the end is important.  Realizing that we manifest with our hearts rather than our hands is important.  Knowing that the sweat on your brow should be the result of happiness in your heart is important.  Realizing that you will be remembered for the love you gave rather than the stuff you left behind is important.  And, knowing it is all manifestation, deliberate or unconscious, is important.