Tonight I was reminded how grateful I am to be well... me. I think of my health and well being yes. But I am also talking about the fact that I can walk... feed myself and take care of myself. I am talking about the fact that I don't need a wheelchair or 24/7 care. Some would look at me and think Michelle you are way way off from that ever happening. The truth is well I was almost too close to that actually happening. Some 28 years ago I had spinal meningitis.
I was well I guess you could say lucky. At the time my family wasn't so sure if I would be so lucky. I some how managed to escapse serve neurological problems besides losing 90% of the hearing in my left ear and some minor hearing loss in my right. As well as having learning struggles in my educational growth. I read alot of information about meningitis and the long term effects and death rate. I read about babies never being the same again. I read about hearing loss, blindness, epilepsy, behavioral difficulties and decreased intelligence. I read about needing a 24/7 caretaker. I read about some living the rest of their days in a wheelchair... not being able to speak, hear or feed themselves.
I read the book Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph by C. Vivian Stringer (Rutgers Head Women's Basketball Coach) Her daughter Nina had just want I had at almost the same time... Nina wasn't so lucky. How can the same exact thing have such a vast different outcome. I think of what could have been and I am flooded with grateful emotions. All the things I took for granted growing up... I now look back and realize the blessings such little things were... that I have for the most part a normal childhood. That I could smile laugh and talk. That I could jump rope (something the doctors told my parents there was a good chance I never would) that I was athletic. That I graduated from high school...college and grad school... That I could live an independent life. All the little things that Nina Stringer never got a chance to do or even dream of doing.
Sometimes I find myself going so fast, wanting to achieve more or venture off. I have dreams... big dreams and I am always reaching for them. But every once in awhile I am pulled back down to realize just how grateful and blessed I have been... For some reason my life was spared by God. For some reason God allowed me to do something on my own with my life. For some reason not the worse happened to me. For that I will always be grateful... that I can speak the emotions that I am feeling. that I can walk from point A to point B. that I can dress myself, bathe myself and feed myself. I may not hear everything and it may take me awhile sometimes to get things and understand things... yet its something I am willing to say that I am grateful for. Most don't know the story behind the scars that I have on my forehead (While I was sick with meningitis I also had the shingles a more serve form of the chicken pox.) Most don't know how proud I am of those scars. Most don't know that those scars esp my harry potter scar (the one that looks like a cross or the hollister bird logo) are a daily reminder to me, just how grateful I should be. Most don't know those scars remind me just how strong I am, just how much I can endure and overcome. Just how grateful I am to be here... Just how grateful I am to get the chance to LOVEthisLIFE!
"More than anything I want to trust in a journey that I don't understand."
"I write entirely to find out what I am thinking & feeling, what I am looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."
"Loving you changed my life. It should come as no surprise that losing you has done the same."
"I am living proof that a shattered heart can still beat.:
"I am living proof that a shattered heart can still beat.:
LOVEthisLiFE
- Michelle
- "Life lies in the JOURNEY not the Destination." Everyday I awake to embrace the day I have been given. Thru times of struggle and in happiness--I find reasons each and everyday to LOVEthisLIFE.
Every story is one to be heard....
"You have been given the chance to live, so LIVE."
"Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future. Therefore, you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go. But more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey."
"Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly, your wholeness when you are broken, your innocence when you feel guilty and your purpose when you are confused."
"I may not have gone where I intended to go - but I believe I have ended up where I needed to be."
"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me - I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."
"If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars."
"Some people just live life in a way that well seems against the grain - never taking the paved way the easy way never living to the checklist of life...but maybe just maybe they are seeking a little bit more from life."
"All of your life is about growing into your personal best...all of your life is about growing into greatness."
"When something bad happens, you have three choices...you can either let it define you, let it destroy you OR you can let it strengthen you."
"I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders."
"Do one thing everyday that scares the complete shit out of you."
"Try to be like a turlte, at ease in your own shell."
"There is a great mystery that none of us will get until that last breath and EVERYTHING will become VERY CLEAR."
"There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with."
"Overcome the notion that you must be regular it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary."
"Too much has been given much is required. You must do something for the greater good to show your gratefulness for the blessings in your life."
"The CHALLENGE of my LIFE is to see how far I can take it."
"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go."
Never ask, "What reason do I have to be happy?" Instead ask, "To what purpose can I attach my happiness?"
"Maybe mistakes are what makes our fate - without them what would shape our lives? Maybe if we never veered off course we wouldn't be who we are now."
"The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt."
"Michelangelo said the best way to judge the essential elements of a sculpture is to throw it down a hill and the unimportant pieces will breake away. Sometimes life is like that. It tosses us down a hill. But when we reach the bottom and only the important things are left, that's when our vision clears. That's when we hold on tight to what we know, while hope stirs inside us. It's all a matter of perspective."
"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm but to add color to my sunset sky."
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces - I would still plant my apple tree."
"Turn your wounds into wisdom and your mess into your message."
"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek & find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
"It is impossible to win the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the victory unless you dare to battle."
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet."
"When you find the way others will find you. Passing by on the road they will be drawn to your door. The way that cannot be heard will be echoed in your voice. The way that cannot be seen will be reflected in your eyes." -Choose your own journey even if it means taking a path no one ever has.
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer anwsers."
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