A Life Well Lived!

My wife's Grandmother transitioned this past Sunday, she was 95 years old and really saw and experienced a lot of changes in her time. Even if she spent her whole life in West Virginia and did not travel out of the area much, she was witness to massive changes that have taken place in the last 50 years.

She was born in 1912, lived through two world wars, the Depression, the 50's, 60's, '70s, '80s, '90s and almost an entire decade in the new millenium. Unfortunately for me, I really did not get to know her as well as I would have liked. There are so many questions I wanted to ask her and so many answers that I will never get to hear. It is my loss and one that I wish I had taken the time to experience. Boy time really is relentless, so one lesson here is to take more time to seek out and talk with the elderly family members as they will one day leave us. Not to get off the subject but quite frankly a similar thing happened when my Dad passed away suddenly, almost ten years ago. There was too much unspoken between us. So, I for one am going to do better and take more time to visit with the ones I love!

One other thing about this story is truly tragic. Grandma Cutright was one of 13 children, a very large family that is virtually unheard of in the U.S. these days and had 5 children of her own. The tragedy is that her children do nothing but bicker and fight. They do not realize what a gem they had in their mother and what that woman did for them. Now it is too late, she is gone and they can never get the time back that they wasted disagreeing over material things. Quite frankly I do not know everything about Grandma Cutright and how she treated her children but that really does not matter nor is it the point.

Sometimes, we just don't do enough to look for the good in others. We keep ourselves trapped in the past by reliving all the transgressions, perceived or real, someone has done to us. One can neither live for the present nor even plan for the future if they are stuck in the past. It puts us in a holding pattern of sorts, takes away our power of choice & creativity and robs us of our time. We need to do a better job of forgiving others, so that we may live our own life, on our terms!

So, if you are one of those people, please take the time to review your own life and see if you are possibly doing the same thing. I know, life is busy but one day we too will have a "Grandma Cutright" or a parent that we wished we had spent more time with and it will be too late!

Saturday, we will say goodbye to Grandma Cutright and hopefully, her family can also say goodbye to all the hurt, fighting and seperateness. Maybe they can finally forgive and come together once more as FAMILY! Only time will tell!