Dealing with Tragedy

So this post is simply to offer some words of encouragement.  Today I received some devastating news.  After years of battling cancer my friend, Aliyah Howard, passed away.  It's always hard losing someone and this situation wasn't any easier.  She was an awesome person and being around her was always enjoyable.  She had been through a lot but she was the same unrelenting and fun person to the end.   She will be missed greatly but my memories of her will be cherished.  My prayers and thoughts go out to her family and friends as we all try to cope with this tragic loss.  

Sometimes life deals some pretty powerful blows whether it be death, poverty, or any other event and/or circumstance.  Resistance to the struggle is futile, there's no way around it you just have to go through it.  It's gonna be alright.  Allow yourself to feel however it is that you are feeling but don't dwell.  If you're angry be angry, if you're sad be sad, and if you're utterly devastated then you have every right to be.  Just go ahead and feel it then when the time is right (and trust me it's different for everyone) allow yourself time to heal.  Wounds heal slowly especially emotional wounds.  Take your time there's no rush.  People should understand and if they don't then you should evaluate your relationship with those people.  If you don't allow yourself to heal you'll never be as close to the former you that you were before (I say as close, because every tragedy changes us no matter how small it's a change and sometimes you just can't go back).  It's like breaking a bone, if that bone doesn't heal properly then you'll have some serious complications later.  So take your time....


I know that I haven't posted anything pertaining to 'My Active Prepared Life' but this week has been a very tough one for thus far.  I promise I will get back to those posts as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading.

Book Review: Tuesdays With Morrie

tuesdays with Morrie

"The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves.  The class met on Tuesdays."

Mitch Albom sums it up well with the first sentence of the book.  Tuesdays with Morrie is a class, it's the most important class that any person can take.  For the last few months of Morrie Schwartz's life he received a visit every Tuesday from his faithful student Mitch Albom.  Each week they would cover a particular subject ranging from family to forgiveness and each week Morrie would provide Mitch with a little more knowledge than he had before.  They treated this time together in this 'class' as Mitch's final thesis.  It would be his final because Morrie was dying.  Morrie had ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) an incurable and  brutal disease.  Mitch had lost touch with his beloved professor but after seeing him on Nightline he began to visit him as he had promised.  This book is a a powerful account of courage and wisdom.  It's a loving and moving look at a man who as he is staring inevitable death in the eye somehow remains grateful and content with the situation.  This book is full of inspiration and I can't go too far into details because I want others to experience it for themselves.    Any summation that I type could not fully incorporate what this book does, what is teaches, or how it makes you feel.  Please if you haven't read it I urge you to go out and get a copy.  It is a classic, I just had to revisit this book. It is an oldie but a goodie as my mom used to say.