Heroes

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody..." That's kind of how I was feeling last night. It had been a busy day, so I crashed at home, as usual. I was feeling kind of "itchy", though, like I wanted to do something, but didn't know what. I didn't have anywhere to go...didn't feel like sitting at the computer...didn't have the patience to read a book, so I was channel surfing on the TV. I kept switching programs because there was mostly crap on to watch, none of which really appealed to me. Then, just before 11:00, I was looking at the online TV guide and noticed a show coming up on CNN called "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute". I decided to give it a try...and, boy, am I glad I did!

This show was about normal, every day people -- people like you and me -- who have done something extraordinary to change the world and make it a better place. For example, there is a man who was a contractor working in Iraq in 2004 who discovered a need for child-sized wheelchairs, so he started a foundation to raise money and purchase them. He even puts them together and delivers them to the children themselves. Now, this may not sound like much, except there are thousands of children -- some of them hurt in the fighting going on there -- who are carried around by their parents or who literally drag themselves through the streets because they have no other way to get around. Since 2004, he has bought and distributed 650 wheelchairs!

There was a teenager who lost his legs in a boating accident. Fortunately, his family had good health insurance and he not only survived, but was able to get prostheses to enable him to lead a "normal" life. He found that there were many children, though, without adequate insurance (or any at all, sometimes) who could not afford prostheses, so he started a foundation to raise money and provide them. I learned that a child usually needs a new prosthetic every 18 months as s/he is growing. This young man has dedicated his life to making the lives of other children better.

There were something like over 7,000 people nominated around the world for this award and 10 were chosen to be honored in the program. Each received a $25,000 grant to continue their work. One was chosen as the "CNN Hero of the Year" and received an additional $100,000.

It was an incredibly inspiring show to watch, especially after seeing so many awards shows lately that honor people for being able to sing or dance or entertain. I'm not minimizing those awards, but there is something inherently wrong in this country when we hold entertainers or sports figures in higher esteem than people who are doing grassroots work to make this world a better place by putting the needs of others ahead of themselves!

This awards show is going to be repeated tonight, Sunday, November 29, at 8:00 and 11:00 pm ET/PT. I encourage you to watch it or, if necessary, record it to watch later. I think you will find it just as inspiring as I did. If you can't watch the show, then go to www.cnn.com/heroes and read about the 2009 recipients. You can also nominate someone for the 2010 award if you know anyone who is worthy of the honor.

Please don't miss it. It is well worth the time to watch!

I'm Thankful for Thanksgiving

Well, I tried, but I fell short this past week. I wanted to write every day about something I'm thankful for, but I missed a few days. I'm a little disappointed in myself and yet, in an odd sort of way, it's the reason that I say I'm thankful for Thanksgiving. Here's the point -- we all get so busy with our day-to-day lives that we don't always stop each day to give thanks, even though we should. So I think it's a good idea that at least one day each year is set aside to stop and think about all we have and say out loud that we are thankful. It's a tradition in our family, as I'm sure it is in many others -- before we dig into the buffet, an abundance of food, for sure, we all stand in a circle and go around and say what we're thankful for. Even if a lot of it is repeated -- we're thankful for family, friends, good health, etc. -- it's okay because it's the act of giving thanks that's really important, not originality. It's also good to remember that this holiday isn't just about the food; it's much more than that.

So, since I didn't get to finish writing about all of the other things I'm thankful for, I offer up this additional list on this special day of Thanksgiving:

• I'm thankful for good health for me and for my family and friends.
• I'm thankful every day that I wake up on the "right" side of the grass (think about it!).
• I'm thankful for my wonderful big sister, Judy, who has been one of the most important people in my life from the day I was born! I'm closer to her than to anyone else on earth, except my children, and know that I can turn to her at any time for anything I need. I don't tell her often enough how much I love her and admire her!
• I'm thankful for Judy's husband, Ed, probably the best brother-in-law in the world. How many BIL's would put up with a sister-in-law living with them for 9 weeks! Well, he did when I was recovering from ankle surgery two years ago. He is a great companion and good friend and, even though he's sometimes a pain in the butt, I wouldn't trade him for anyone!
• I'm thankful for my nieces, Sara and Rachel, and their respective families. I've watched them grow up and blossom into beautiful, loving, intelligent, successful women. I couldn't be prouder of them if they were my own daughters!
• I'm thankful for all of my friends and I am fortunate to be blessed with so many of them! I think I have one of the largest support groups in the world!
• I'm thankful for growing older, as strange as that may sound. My parents both died way too young -- Dad was only 54 and Mom was only 56 (she died 5 years after my father). I have already lived longer than either of them and had the opportunity to retire, something they never did. So even though growing older has some down side to it (memory's not so good, more doctor visits and medications, etc.), it still beats the alternative.
• I'm thankful for the life I've lived the past (almost) 59 years. It hasn't been perfect, but then, no one's life ever is! My heart is filled with memories...some good, some bad, some bittersweet...but I've learned something from all of them. I've been blessed with a good life so far and I hope it continues for another 40 years!

So that's it for this Thanksgiving. The food has been eaten, the leftovers put away, the dishes washed, the football watched, and thanks have been given. May we all be blessed in the coming year and be able to come together again next Thanksgiving to do it all over again!

Happy Thanksgiving to all....and to all a good night!

I'm Thankful for Home Sweet Home

Sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. It turned into a pretty busy day and I just never got to it. I guess I spoiled my plan to write a post every single day until Thanksgiving, but I'm doing my best. At least I'm writing more than I was before and I've had a lot of friends and family tell me they're enjoying reading my blog, so I've accomplished that much.

I was trying to think of a good subject to write about tonight and as I was driving home from my chorus rehearsal, I found one. It's a rainy, miserable, cold night out there tonight and I started thinking about how happy I would be when I arrived home to my lovely, dry, warm apartment. And then I started thinking about all the people who don't have homes to go to this night. I thought about all the homeless people in our town, in our Nation's Capital and throughout the country. With these tough economic times that seem to be going on and on and on, I'm sure the number of homeless is higher than ever. So I thought that today I would give thanks for the roof over my head! It's not fancy or lavish; it's usually even kind of messy and cluttered, but it's mine! (Well, mine and the bank's! LOL) I'm thankful that I was able to purchase a home and that I've been able to keep up the payments on it. I hope that never changes, but if it ever did and if, Heaven forbid, I ever lost my home, I know that I would be able to turn to my family and friends for help and would not have to sleep on the streets.

May God bless all of those who are not as fortunate as I and bring them comfort in this miserable weather.

I'm Thankful for a Special Friend

Today I spent most of the day with someone who has been a special person in my life for over 40 years. I call her Karpe, a nickname she was labeled with when we were in Girl Scouts together back in our high school days. I won't bore you with the story, but she has always been "Karpe" to me and my family. We're the only people in the world who call her that.

Forty years. It's hard to believe! It's hard to fathom what my life would have been like without her. I was 17, a senior in high school when we met; she was 15 and a sophomore. We were both going through difficult times in our lives. My father was recovering from his first bout of cancer; Hodgkins Disease, to be exact. Her father was an alcoholic and she was having a hard time dealing with it. We turned to each other for support and a lifelong friendship was born.

Since that time, we have been through thick and thin together...literally! Our lives have been filled with peaks and valleys, as everyone's are, and we were right there for each other whenever we were needed. We've celebrated more life events together than I can ever count and we've cried together more times than I would like to remember. We can be just as silly today in our "middle age" years as we were as teenagers, maybe even moreso! Or maybe it's just that we enjoy laughing together at ourselves or at other things.


I have received so much from her over the years and I've had the opportunity to give equally as much. I took her for chemotherapy treatments when she battled cancer, not once, but twice. She was there to help me pick up the pieces of a broken marriage. She's come over and helped me clean my house when I needed it and I helped take care of her when she was recovering from hip replacement surgery...twice.

When I told her I was going to do a 3-day breast cancer walk in her honor back in 2000, she immediately signed up to do it with me. What fun that was...especially on the very first day when we were the absolutely last two people in the group of 3,000 walkers, and the only thing behind us was the ambulance waiting to see if we needed a ride!


Our weekend shopping trips became infamous, although they started simply enough. I remember it well...it was 1988 and she had finished her treatment for breast cancer, her first bout with the disease. It was also the year we were celebrating 20 years as friends and I suggested we do something special to honor both occasions. Our children (I had two sons by then and she had one) were still pretty young and, being boys, weren't very interested in shopping for clothes. In fact, we usually had to take them kicking and screaming to the stores! So Karpe and I decided to "escape" our families and head up to Reading, PA to try our hands at outlet shopping. We left early on a Saturday morning in the fall, shopped till we dropped at the Vanity Fair Outlet (mostly for the kids, but also for our husbands and ourselves), then stayed overnight in Lancaster. The next day we stuck around a few hours to shop some of the outlets there, but once her station wagon was filled with bags and ready to burst at the seams, we headed home. We had spent the whole time talking, laughing, shopping and eating -- a perfect weekend!

The following year, we left late Friday afternoon when we finished work. That way, we'd have more time to spend in Reading. By the third year, we were taking the day off on Friday so we'd have three full days to shop....and the rest is history! It was our special time together...a time when we could be by ourselves and talk about anything, serious or not. We made that trip every year for 13 years! By then, the boys were grown and she had a daughter who had reached the age where she wanted to pick out her own clothes. We still go shopping together, though, but her now teenaged daughter usually comes along, too.

Now our lives are so busy that sometimes weeks go by before we get a chance to talk on the phone; months pass when we don't get to see each other, even though we don't live very far apart. We're always together at family events, though, because she and her family are as much a part of my family as if they'd been born into it! We make the time to see each other and spend time together -- whether it's going to a craft show, like we did today...or having dinner together...or when she comes to my chorus or quartet performances or I go to her school to watch her kindergarten students perform. She's even an official groupie for my quartet! She came with us to Ocean City last April for our first competition and I'm hoping she'll come with us again next April for our second try.

We'll be together again for Thanksgiving as we are every year, this time at her house. My whole extended family will be there and I'll be helping her prepare the feast. Like I said, it really doesn't matter what it is we do when we're together; we just like to be in each other's company.


I'm thankful for Karpe, my bestest friend!

I'm Thankful for My Children!

I have been blessed to be the mother of two fine young men, Paul and Dan. I look at them and still can't believe they are all grown up! Dan (my "baby") is going to be 26 next week and Paul will be 30 in January. Wow! I look at them and wonder how they ever started out as little, tiny infants. Where did the years go?

I'd like to say that raising them was easy, but there were plenty of times it wasn't. We were much luckier than many parents, though, because our boys had no severe disabilities or handicaps to deal with. They never got in trouble with the law or harmed another person. They're good, decent men.

We had our share of illnesses, broken bones, various sprained body parts, etc., as they were growing up, but for the most part, they were healthy. They weren't perfect, but then, neither were we. We went through tough times with them emotionally, as many families do. We've dealt with depression, low self-esteem issues, ADHD, drug use (just one of them), divorce (and its aftermath), etc. But that's behind them now and they have both turned out to be fine, upstanding citizens.

My relationship with them has gotten much closer the last 7 years since my husband and I separated and divorced. A year later, he moved 3000 miles away and that really took its toll on my sons. I think they felt abandoned, so they turned more and more to me for support. Even though they were both grown up by then, I was the "resident" parent and they took turns moving in with me, then out, then back in, then out.... Now they are both on their own and handling things fairly well. I still get an occasional call from one of them for some financial help, but I've also been able to turn to the other one now and then when I needed a few bucks myself. It's good to know that we help each other -- we're all adults and our relationships are on an adult level. Still, they'll always be my little boys in my heart.

One thing that I really appreciate is the way that they've become very protective of me since the separation. They check up on me, call several times a week (if not daily), listen when I've had a bad day and need to talk about it, and come help me with chores that I can't handle by myself. They both have wonderful hearts and reach out to help others, often before being concerned about themselves. What more could a mother ask for? They turned out good!

I am thankful every single day for my sons. They are the light of my life!