My Funeral/Golden Rules for Living

I often don't know what I'll be blogging about. I work with what I've given each day. Because my mother has recently she's gone into a full decline, this is the subject. She's given up taking responsibility for herself. She defines "self-centered" & "selfish," so she's been a great reference for understanding these traits.

I've had her in my home for nearly 2 years now, had sole care of her for nearly 9 months. So this put it in my face full time. It's been a huge opportunity for me to heal & come to truly understand her total influence in my life. One of the things I learned is that I wasn't nearly as healed as I thought I was. Different issues needing healing kept coming up after I thought they were healed. I'm not the only one - some people I greatly admire as spiritually evolved, have found they have old things coming up from the past these days. They thought they were healed, & some really long ago stuff has been coming up lately. So we've been given another opportunity to heal. This is the time, folks, & we all need to take the best advantage of it.

One of the things I've come to realize is that I've spent my life from the time I was a teen, trying to be the anti-Norma, her direct opposite. When we do that, consciously or not, we tend to go overboard in the opposite direction & live life in an imbalanced state. I'm no exception to that. I tend to take care of everyone else but me, for one thing. My loving daughter passed on to me several great versions of the Golden Rule. One is that instead of treating your neighbors as you want to be treated, you should treat them the way THEY want to be treated! How golden is that! The other one is that you should be treating YOURSELF at least as well as you treat your neighbor! So very true, & so difficult for many of us. I'm currently working on that one.

I have my own Golden Rules. I live part of my life with no regrets, including when loved ones depart this earth. I say "I love you" to the people I love, at every opportunity, & I make opportunities. When my beloved grandmother died, I'd made the trip to see her 10 days earlier, & had again told her in detail how much I treasured her. I told her of her meaning in my life, which was more of a mother & example than my own. I'd told her that before too. I was devastated when she died, but I had no regrets because I hadn't left any good unsaid.

I also believe that if you have any good thing to say to someone, you need to make the opportunity to say it. (I especially do that with the most important people of all - my kids.) Yesterday I sent a message to 2 of my daughter's friends that I know. She passed on that they said they admire how I've handled the situation I was dealt through my ex husband. That means the world to me because at the time it all went down, I took on a great deal of guilt. I wanted to be sure I handled the situation & my life from then on in a way that would redeem myself to myself & would make my children proud of me & set a better example for them. (Not that they needed that, or that they were blaming me at all. They were trying to help me not feel guilty.) So for my daughter's friends to notice was a huge affirmation for me that I'd succeeded. Since that was a great gift, I thanked them in detail. Because you never know when a small act of kindness will provide a big gift for someone else. I believe you need to tell someone when it does.

The gist of my biggest Golden Rule is that every act & word has an impact based on the negative or positive energy we release. It's a drop of water on the surface of the pond. You don't see it, but it creates ripples. If you cuss out a store employee he may go home & beat his wife because it was the final straw that day. Truly! It's all over the news, random shootings & no one knows what pushed the guy over the edge. If you say something nice to someone, he could do that to someone who just needed one kind word to keep from committing suicide. It really can be that dramatic. Thing is, once you do or say something, you have no control over the created ripple. But negative always begets negative & positive always begets positive, & it does always flow out. Now, God can turn negatives into positives but there's enough for Him to work with without us adding to it! So I try to always be a source of positives, & I do it with INTENT.

My mother has planned her funeral down to the last detail - music, Bible verses, etc. I haven't told her this, but she won't be having that funeral, since at most 3 people would come, even including me. Whenever she talks about it, I think about what would happen if I died. I haven't put any time into planning a funeral. I put my time into others instead. I'd like to think that many, many people all over the country would miss me, would be sorry to lose me. I'd like to know that I've touched many lives deeply enough to have truly mattered. I'd like my life to have left a lasting impact on those I've touched, & for that to be many & widespread. Through my children, family, & friends, I want to have left a deep legacy of love. I want to have made a real difference, an true impact on as much of the world as possible.