Focusing on the good that can, does, and will come of every situation
My mother left me a lot of things – children’s books, family photos, reams of music, her heavily annotated copy of the Messiah, art, 19-year’s worth of teaching supplies, linens, more linens, my great-aunt’s Spode china, a love of Brubeck, sense of rhythm, and most importantly, the ability and desire to spontaneously burst into song.
But the one I treasure most is a newspaper clipping she kept taped to her computer monitor…
Patrick Joyce knows one thing. He will not live to see his children grow up.
“It’s like watching a great film and not being able to see the end,” he says. In 2008, Patrick was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or in the US, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the baseball player. In the UK, where Patrick, his wife Kathy, and their three small children, Reuben (7), Elliot, (2), and Nancy, (5 mths), live, it is known as motor neuron disease or MND. Patrick is losing his ability to walk, talk, eat and ultimately, to breathe. He is not expected to live to see his daughter enter kindergarten.
So, you are probably wondering…what is the good in this situation? Actually, it’s all Patrick’s idea, I’m just sharing his story. A friend sent me the link to Patrick’s website, www.patricktheoptimist.org and well, I didn’t know he had MND until I clicked on the link.
This man, who already needs help walking, and is struggling to talk, and yet he is determined to use what is left of his life to encourage others to do something optimistic every day. He says, “MND may be incurable but I am an incurable optimist. I know that through optimism we can find a cure for MND.”
And Patrick is leading by example…Patrick is an artist and as part of his campaign for incurable optimism, despite limited mobility, and decreasing muscle control, he is working on producing portraits of 100 incurable optimists. He’s well on his way (and may I say, as I fancy myself a fellow artist, he’s very good!) You can see his portraits and nominate an incurable optimist you know for the series at his website.
“I found out first-hand what MND does to individuals and families…I want to help stop this. I want to get better care for me and my fellow sufferers and I want a cure.
Daily Practice: For yourself and for Patrick, do something optimistic.
First, I’m not a politician and I don’t aspire to be. Second, I’d be the first person to tell you I’m a Democrat, a Lutheran, a woman (hopefully obviously), a middle-aged woman (hopefully not so obviously), a Caucasian, 9th generation American and apparently a honorary hockey mom (since I grew up in Alaska); (the last one is technically not true because my kids sing and do Aikido, and my van died, but I digress…)
The point is I have my opinions about how things should be done and run but that’s not the purpose of this site. The purpose of this site is to focus on the good in all things. And sometimes that’s a challenge because sometimes those things are hard because the stuff that really matters is hard. Our opinions are sharply divided; our experiences real and raw, and sometimes its easier to fixate on our differences than discuss our common dreams and challenges.
Today is the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s historic “I have a dream” speech. I’d urge you to take seventeen minutes to watch it and remember its relevance today. If you don’t have seventeen minutes then hopefully you can five minutes to read it: http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html. [Read more...]
copyright - Mike Siegel - The Seattle Times
For the last month or so I’ve been taking the bus to work. This may not seem very monumental to most and frankly, I’m a little ashamed to say I’m feeling mighty proud of myself but you see, we live in Lake Stevens, a beautiful lake-side community thirty-five miles northeast of Seattle. We moved to Snohomish County from Seattle in 2005 for a variety of reasons — more house for less money, small-town vibe, and a lake ten times the size of the 100 Acre Wood. We could (and did) spend an hour commuting across the 520 or, we reasoned, spend an hour driving to our house a block from the lake with the massive old growth cedar trees, a stream where Kokanee salmon spawn, and the resident bald eagles, George and Martha, who have nested down the road since 1992.
But the bus ride from Lake Stevens to Seattle is a different story. It’s about two hours one-way. If I can talk my husband into driving me into Everett, that shaves off 1/2 hour or an hour of what could be a four hour round-trip. I might be crazy.
Why do I do it? It started because my mini-van died and so…we decided…rather I decided…to test out life with one car. I work as a consultant and don’t have to be in Seattle every day, so it made sense both economically and philosophically and besides I was making my 19 year old take the bus to college in Seattle and I figured I should be a good example. He still finds it amusing how impressed I am with myself. I was a little worried I’d feel out of place–given I’m your basic white, middle class, mini-van driving soccer mom.
In 1996, I nearly died of preeclampsia during the birth of my third child. That day my life did a complete 180;(which, coincidentally, was also what my blood pressure was when I was admitted to the ER — 180/120 at 38 weeks pregnant) — it seems I didn’t take to dying too well.
And as a result, I decided to really live — to speak the truth, even when it was hard; to admit my mistakes; to be kind to myself and others; to be open to change; to listen to the lessons life was trying to teach me, and to make a difference.
So, in 1999 I founded the Preeclampsia Foundation. I went from being a 5th grade teacher with crippling stage fright, to an outspoken, pushy woman who would not take no for an answer, talking to World Health Organization, the March of Dimes, the Gates Foundation, to anyone who would take my calls. I even talked my way up to Laura Bush’s press secretary because I knew she, like me, had had preeclampsia. Suddenly, I had no fear. And no experience!
I wasn’t a doctor, or nurse, or nonprofit manager, or fundraiser, or database developer, or public speaker — but I had nothing to lose. I jumped in the deep end. I immersed myself in it all and didn’t care if I fell flat on my face. Nothing…nothing could be worse than what happened to me.
