Laughter really is the best medicine. Just ask the Bloggess.

Bright and happy – that is how I view the future.  How can it be anything but?  I know there will be hard times – that is inevitable, but I just choose to look forward with a positive attitude.  Anyone who knows me would tell you that I laugh easily.  My sister can just say the word “Monkey” or anything really and I will collapse in a fit of laughter.  The way I see it, laughter really is the best medicine.  It may not cure cancer or feed the hungry or anything like that, but it does make the world seem brighter.  When someone laughs, really laughs, everything is okay.   Even if it is only for a minute, the world is a safe place.

One of my favorite blogs to go to for a daily dose of laughter is The Bloggess.  If you have never heard of it before and you have a great sense of humor (according to you, of course), I highly recommend subscribing to it.  Be warned, though:  it is not for the faint-of-heart.  If you have a problem with the F word or any other “bad” word, you probably shouldn’t read it.  Of course, I have a lot of catching up to do, because I kinda neglected my Bloggess reading for a while there, a long while.  It has been a few months at least.  All because I have yet to figure out how to describe to the thing.  Also, the Bloggess has a book out.  It has a dead taxidermified (did I just make up that word?  Sounds waaaaay better than “taxidermied,” if you ask me) mouse on the cover and it is entitled “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.”  Okay.  I’m good with that.  But wait…  Let’s pretend WHAT never happened?

Exactly why I want to get that book.

Anyway, I wanted to direct my readership to one of the funniest posts I’ve read this year.  Go to the bathroom first (even if you just have to go a little bit), because if you don’t, you’ll be sorry, especially if you are like me and laugh your head off at things like this – Would you like to buy a monkey?  Go ahead.  Click on that link.  I dare you.

Hope is closer than you (and I) think

First, I’d like to say that, yes, I know that image above is kinda freaky.  I mean, I have read too many ghost stories and seen too many ghost movies for my mind not to go there.  So, in disregarding that, the image does make a point.  Hope is always within reach, if you look for it.  And trust me, I am looking for it.

Hope.  What does it mean?  It’s the feeling that something is possible when you want it badly enough.  It’s the feeling of confidence that things will turn out for the best.  It’s a particular feeling that makes you look forward to something (the hope of something better to come).  Hope is the ground on which we stand.  Hope for a better tomorrow when today was awful.  Hope for someone sick to get better.  Hope can also be a person or a thing (example:  That doctor was her last hope).  Hope is the foundation in which we build our lives on.  Hope is what keeps us going.  Without hope, we would get nowhere.  We would all be moping fools.

One of the reasons why I haven’t been posting regularly is that I am trying to work something out in my head, and I know that if I write about it on here, I will lose interest in it.  And I can’t do that.  Not this time.  It’s too important.  It’s like a bird with a broken wing.  I can’t let it go until it is ready.  I have dropped bits and pieces here and there, mainly because I know I cannot do this alone.  I need other people to keep me grounded – so I don’t go crazy and give up before I even begin.  I’m always coming up with new things – what-ifs, maybes, and how-abouts.  Some of them will work, but a lot of them won’t.  And that is okay.  It’s a process, and it’ll take time, but I’ll get to where I am going.  I have no doubt about that.

Hope keeps me going – the hope of a better world, with no diseases, no wars, nothing bad.  Yes, I am a dreamer, but I do know that such a world exists – a world we cannot see with our human eyes.  It’s called Heaven, and it’s safe there.  Heaven is the safest place ever, but the only thing is, you have to die to this world in order to go there.  And the people you leave behind – they don’t know where you are.  They don’t know if you are safe.  That is where hope walks hand in hand with faith…  In order to believe in anything, you have to be open to it, right?  This makes me think of the quote in LeAnn Rimes’ book/movie, Holiday in Your Heart:  ”We are so far from God, who do you think moved?”

Here’s a clue:  It’s not God.

Week 2 Gratitude List: Hope

This is week two of my gratitude lists (third if you count Thanksgiving).  I have much to be grateful for, always do, but I am feeling extra excited to share with you the thoughts and feelings God has placed within me.  So, without further ado, here we go.

1) I am grateful for HOPE.  Without it, there’d really be no reason to live.  No reason to breathe.  We all hope for something, whether or not we admit it to ourselves.  My faith that there is something more to me than this life propels me forward.  I’ll be a good soldier for God, speaking about my faith, standing strong in the face of my enemy, which is this world.  Really.  I mean, think about it?  Where do the temptations begin?  In this world?  Sometimes (all right, most of the time) we are so selfish, only thinking about ourselves, what we have, what we want, what we will get.  We think about what we don’t have.  Sometimes, it turns into an obsession.  And it’s unhealthy.  It doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have.  In the end, we can’t take it with us.  And why would we want to?  What’s ahead is so much better than anything this old world has to offer.  That is hope.  That is real.  I believe everything happens for a reason, even though sometimes we can’t see what it is.  Sometimes we are so blinded by sorrow that we forget.  We forget where we came from.  We forget where we are going.  We have purpose.  I once read that one way to test that is by realizing you were still alive.  If you still have a pulse, you still have work to do here on earth.  It’s as simple as that.

2) I am thankful for the people who God works through to make HOPE possible, doctors, especially.  Specifically, the doctors who are working on a cure for childhood cancer – for example, the doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.  I have read great things about that place.  They’re cutting-edge.  If anyone discovers a cure for cancer, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was there.  And the best part is?  They treat ALL cancers – not just childhood cancer.  Not just breast cancer.  Not just any ONE cancer.  ALL of them.  This is what this country needs.  Equal attention means equal survival rates.  Yet, we live in a world where childhood cancer awareness is crowded out by breast cancer awareness.  Is that right?  No.  Everyone has the right to live.  I am grateful that people are starting to sit up and be aware.  Kids get cancer too.  I was one of them.  Cancer does not care who it attacks as long as it is someone.  Some people get that.  And they are working tirelessly around the clock to fix that.  True, they are only human, but I have faith that God will direct their minds and hands.  The Great Physician cures everything – in His time.  Not ours.  Time is irrelevant.  One day, we’ll realize that too.

3)  I am grateful for the promises that HOPE brings, no matter if they are unfulfilled at the moment or not.  The promises are tomorrow’s secret.  They dance in the air like leaves, except they are unseen, like the angels.  At the moment, all we have is our hope, our ache, our loneliness, our whatever.  But tomorrow?  Tomorrow, who knows.  Tomorrow, all our dreams could come true.  Tomorrow, life could be beautiful.  Which is not to say that today isn’t beautiful, because it is.  I am reminded now of that poem or quote or whatever it was that went something like, “I painted a rainbow for you in the sky, but your eyes were too clouded by tears to see.”  That is just heartbreaking, isn’t it?  I think so.  The people who have slipped away to the next part of their story – they do so want to see us happy.  Just ask them, when you see them again, in your dreams or after you take your last breath.  They understand, trust me.  They understand our grief, and they understand that we need to move on.  How do we do that?  One moment at a time.  One day at a time.  They’re always with us.  Always.

Hope is a One-Way Street

I think it would be nice to live on a street called Hope Street.  Or even Faith Street.  Or Love Street.  Grace Street?  Grace Avenue?  Grace Avenue sounds better.  Hope Avenue.  Yep.  Hope Avenue.  This would be inspiring.  The whole world needs to live on such streets – maybe then people will finally, finally get it.  Someday, the world will be perfect, and until then, I will keep believing, keep hoping, and keep trusting in God.  It was never God’s intention for the world to end up this way.  It was all us.  We have free will, and we chose the world instead of God.

I believe that one day there will be a cure for everything that ails us.  EVERYTHING.  Cancer.  Alzheimer’s. Physical disabilities.  Grief.  Everything.  And we will be able to see what we had missed before – the veil that separates this world from the next will fall away.  Nobody will be in pain anymore.  Our lives will be ideal.  Things will be perfect.

I believe that it is not what happens to us that matters most, but how we react to them.  It makes me think of that saying:  ”That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”  I first saw this quote in a tack room of Spurs and Spokes, the 4H club where I was able to take horseback riding lessons for 6 weeks a year.  I haven’t done it in years.  And that makes me sad.  I absolutely loved being in the saddle, no matter that my legs were like jelly after I rode (that feeling eventually went way the more I rode, although now, if I were to go riding today, I imagine I wouldn’t be able to walk at all afterward, I haven’t done it in so long).  I wasn’t afraid, even though my first lesson ever there, my horse spooked and reared up on his hind legs.  Luckily, I had people on both sides of me, and one of them caught me, while the horse stepped on the other person’s foot.  Ouch.  I was probably nine or ten, and I wasn’t fazed at all.  I wanted to get back up there (isn’t that what you’re supposed to do after you fall off a horse?) and was very disappointed when I wasn’t allowed.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  It is true in my own life, and it is true in yours, even if you can’t see it.  And honestly, what is better, just sit around day after day waiting for you life to end (but taking no action), or doing something and making the world a better place?

If you said the latter, you are correct.

To believe is a powerful thing.  A little bit of faith can lead you on the ride of your life.  I am writing this down because I believe I can get somewhere that is better than here.  Here is nowhere close to where I want to be.  With all my heart, I want to be there, living my biggest and best dream.  And I know I can do it.

Sunshine

If I were a television producer, I would be so in the public’s face with childhood cancer awareness. My show would be fictional (because I cannot STAND reality television), and I would call it “Sunshine.” It would revolve around 7 families battling various forms of cancer in the same town, same hospital. Most likely it would be a prime time drama like Grey’s Anatomy, but instead of focusing on the doctors, it will portray the families. And at the end of every single episode, there would be a real child who has battled cancer or is battling cancer. And you can bet your bottom dollar that neuroblastoma is going to be one of them.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. I’d have to write it as a novel first, try to get people interested and more aware of this monster. Novels get television deals all the time. And maybe I’d just be a co-producer instead of the head producer, and maybe I could write for the show too, or co-write. The pilot will start with day one, the diagnoses. Nothing will be held back. It will be bold and it will be sad and it will be in-your-face.

I would call it “Sunshine” for various reasons. There’s nothing brighter than the sun. Nothing brighter than hope. My mom told me she used to sing me “You Are My Sunshine” when I was sick. Also, when the sun rises, there is a vast amount of light spilling to earth, chasing the darkness away. Children with cancer are battling a darkness, and it is up to us to help them fight.

Each show would be dedicated to a Warrior or an Angel, complete with pictures. If that won’t get the attention and awareness that childhood cancer so deserves, I don’t know what will.