Monday, April 6, 2009

The Message From Tragedy

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entitled “Why it all happens for You”. The underlying message being that all events have purpose and the more you can see the purpose, the more your life is experienced with a peace and a flow from this understanding.

I bring this up again now because in the last few days, front and center, this message became very clear at home.

My Wife’s Aunt, Bobbie King (her mother’s sister), was doing something she loved, filling in substitute teaching English at a civic center to immigrants looking to become U.S. citizens. As many of you may have heard on the news, a gunman came into the Binghamton N.Y. facility and killed 13 people. Bobbie King was one of them. We got the news Friday night and Sunday morning my wife was on a plane with her mother to attend the funeral.

Bobbie King was a mother of ten wonderful children and grandmother to seventeen grandchildren. A kind and loving human being that never uttered a bad word about anybody and always had something positive to say to all who knew her. All you have to do is see the warm and gentle nature of each of her ten children to know what kind of a woman she was.

In speaking to my wife today she said she stood in the receiving line at the funeral with her mother and Bobbie’s family for over three hours as hundreds of people passed by and paid their respects. She said each and every person had the most loving and kind things to say about Bobbie. Each person was touched in some way by her gentle nature and loving and accepting heart.

You can never truly know the ultimate destiny or path of another person during your lifetime. Even for the people who are closest to you. All you can control is how you handle the moment to moment expression of your creative energy out to them. Life is a sea of constant change. Everything you love and enjoy in your life is on loan from the infinite source from which it emanated from. It all has a finite life to it. Whether it passes or changes from what are seemingly normal circumstances or the transformation or change happens from an event that is viewed as chaos or unnatural, change happens nonetheless. Therefore, there is no better time to express your love to all of it then now.

So you can choose to see this as a senseless tragedy of a beautiful life cut short, or you can see this as a wonderful opportunity to wake up further to the finite beauty that is all around you every day. You can use this awareness to be present with your loved ones and strangers a little longer, be more compassionate and less judging, smile a little bigger, worry a little less, love a little deeper and freer, and simply enjoy more fully the magnificence and miracles in life that surround and that are for you each and every day.

So tonight at my son’s little league game I smiled a little longer at him before he went to bat and hugged him a little tighter afterword telling him how proud I was of him. When my daughter left for gymnastics practice I kissed her forehead a little longer and made sure I told her how much I love her. When we all got home I let our dog Karma lick my face a little longer. And as I laughed as she did it her tail wagged a little stronger and she proceeded to make sure she didn’t miss a spot on my face. And tonight I breathed in the night air outside a little deeper as I wrote these words, being overwhelmingly thankful for all of it.

There is a beautiful purpose in all things if you are willing to look deep enough into them to see it. This shocking and tragic event has brought to light the wonderful impact one woman has had on so many lives. It is also to offer to you just how much impact you have everyday on those whom you come into contact with. What will you do with the gift of life you have now? What will you offer to those whom you interact with each day of your life? What will you see in this message that you have brought yourself?

While many of the hundreds, or even thousands, came to mourn Bobbie King’s tragic passing, even more importantly, they came to honor what she did with her gift of life each and every day; offer the fullest of her simple and gentle love to everyone who crossed her path. Whether she knew them or not….

More can be read about her here –

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090405/NEWS01/904050380

With the fullest of love,
Howard
 
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