I gave this exact thing some thought just recently when recounting some old memory. Must be some human survival mechanism because I surely did not quite feel the depth of emotion that I should have for such an experience. Same truth occurs in that everything does get better with time... and this too, shall pass.
you ask us to think of something we "survived" that we are grateful about. why does everybody bandy the word grateful about, assuming everybody is or should be grateful? people who have extraordinarily tough experiences are pushed to be "grateful", are often shamed if they don't express some of that "gratefulness." there are many rash assumptions in that wish for others to be grateful or to find something to be grateful about. sometimes an experience could call for no such "gratefulness" and asking people to find that "gratefulness" actually is a disservice to the person who experienced the trauma.
Not sure if they were all encompassing or not, but ordeals, I've had a few:
- Separated within two years of eloping with a girl I'd known since university and who I dated and had broken up with 8 or 10 times prior to the elopement- divorced a year later. Learned: wishing doesn't make it so and you can't make a fundamentally unhappy person happy.
- packaged off from my first real job at a Financial Institution after 11 years, seemingly out of the blue. Learned: nobody cares about your career other than you, pay attention to the little warning signs when your boss starts being odd towards you, never accept the first package they offer you.
- packaged off from my third job with a financial institution. Learned: when in a financial crisis like 2008, don't work for the international arm of a US online brokerage firm that has shifted to making most of its money from investing its own capital in subprime because when the music stops they're going to have to sell off the international business to increase their odds of survival
- packaged off from my fourth full time job at yet another financial institution after having just done another expat stint outside the country, in a round of restructuring. Reaffirmed: the only one who cares about your career is you, corporations expect loyalty but offer none.
- unemployed for a year and a half because what I do is reasonably niche and nobody was hiring. Learned: there comes a point where you're willing to consider just about any job (school bus driver? I could do that. Wait.. It pays what?), A supportive spouse is worth her or his weight in diamonds during tough times, the stars will eventually align for you again if you can afford to wait them out, that I'm a slow learner because yes I'm at another financial institution now. So far, so good 😀
I was very young; I had a fever. I remember being placed on a counter so that my mother could purchase something. I looked down at my hands, then flipped them over to look at my palms. They were all red with white spots all over them. Then everything faded like in the movies when the screen creeps in from all corners to meet in the middle and goes to black. The next thing I remember from this traumatic experience was waking up in an oxygen tent with ice bags all around me and tubes coming from everywhere. I was going to survive the meningitis that was ravaging my tiny body.
Sometimes, now at 50 years old, I can look at my palms and I still see the little red hands with white spots. I am thankful to the doctors and the nurses who brought me back from the brink. I would have missed so much.
I was married in my late teens and divorced in my early twenties. When I was twenty-seven, my ex-wife's husband left a burning cigarette and my two sons in the house, alone. They perished at ages four and six.
I've had many years since to learn about forgiveness as well as trying to be thankful and content in all circumstances. This was not done in my own strength but in being rescued by God and a loving and supportive family.
Well, the pumpkin tip brings up another problem — the closed top of the pumpkin will absorb all the heat from the enclosed candle, creating a burning stench. (The fix for that would be to use LED candles.)
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes.
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes.
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes
My daughter was diagnosed with a rare, permanent, and potentially fatal autoimmune condition when she was 12. It required a PICC line for chemo and roughly 12 daily medications. She was so fearful of getting an infection from the PICC line getting wet in the shower that she requested I give her a bath every night. After spending the day in bed severly depressed, I would tape a ziplock bag over the line and give her a bath. For 18 months. The conversations we had, while I was being the mom and holding a steady face and tone of voice, mind you, were incredibly intense. Life, death, the meaning of things, the why of things...and for a 12 and then 13 year old girl to need and allow her mom to give her a bath shows how scared she was. After she put on her jammies and I read her our special book, I would go into my bedroom and figuratively die. Ugly, gut-wrenching, from the soul cry until I fell asleep. How could I keep my girl from dying? My whole job is to keep her safe!
Takeaway: this was 9 years ago. My life has currently exploded harmfully in EVERY area, but she hasn't had a relapse in 5 years and my son is a happy little guy. It gave me perspective. Or I guess it gave me a bar of "what is the worst" that is so high, I hopefully will never top it. Even now, when my son, 2 ancient kitties, and I are facing homelessness due to our supportive housing closing down, I have 5 online classes, and cervical disc issues...am I discussing with my daughter what she would like me to remember about her if she died? No, no, I am not. We are all alive and as Tom Hanks character in "Castaway" so beautifully states, "I know what I have to do now. I've got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring."
Sidenote: If able, please support the Make-A-Wish Illinois chapter. When it was such a dark time, they granted her wish for a trip to Disney World...it gave us such a reprieve from our daily struggle. Restorative and very happy memories in a time when there weren't many.
After a successfull career in the federal government and then with a Fortune 200 company, I was fired from 6 jobs in a row, never lasting more than 2 years. I just didn't seem to fit in. It was then I decided I could only be my own boss and started my own firm 25 years ago and eventually went into business with a client/good friend that has led to a highly lucrative and successful life style enabling my wife and I to travel all over the world and send our kids too. I had to over come the fear of not getting a regular paycheck and believe in my self and stop trying to fit into a mold of others making but to do it my way. Don;t let others tell you "it can't be done"; believe in your own self when no one else will
In 2004 our 30-year-old daughter, married with three small children, had a brain stem stroke and was given 24 hours to live. Miraculously, she survived but they said she was locked-in and would never move below her eyes again. Miraculously, again, she can use her right hand and get around in a wheelchair. She has limited speech. Normally someone with her situation would have three tubes in her. She has none. She has a one in a million husband. She also has a blog to inspire people. It is jenannlynn.org.
That 10-yr old tattoo story, and the accompanying comments underneath it are enough internet for me today. Why, OH WHY did I have to go searching for the comment section on that?
Yes. I remember having read the book, Alive, many years ago. As memory serves, I liked that the young man who wanted to become a doctor (and who did his best to be the medical expert for the crash victims), actually did follow through with his goal of becoming a physician.
With what I’ve read about the experiences of universal basic income from various sources, KUDOS to L.A. for considering this for their at risk young people … and that they’re targeting a population who is doing their best to move forward in their lives, despite their disadvantaged past.
I gave this exact thing some thought just recently when recounting some old memory. Must be some human survival mechanism because I surely did not quite feel the depth of emotion that I should have for such an experience. Same truth occurs in that everything does get better with time... and this too, shall pass.
you ask us to think of something we "survived" that we are grateful about. why does everybody bandy the word grateful about, assuming everybody is or should be grateful? people who have extraordinarily tough experiences are pushed to be "grateful", are often shamed if they don't express some of that "gratefulness." there are many rash assumptions in that wish for others to be grateful or to find something to be grateful about. sometimes an experience could call for no such "gratefulness" and asking people to find that "gratefulness" actually is a disservice to the person who experienced the trauma.
Not sure if they were all encompassing or not, but ordeals, I've had a few:
- Separated within two years of eloping with a girl I'd known since university and who I dated and had broken up with 8 or 10 times prior to the elopement- divorced a year later. Learned: wishing doesn't make it so and you can't make a fundamentally unhappy person happy.
- packaged off from my first real job at a Financial Institution after 11 years, seemingly out of the blue. Learned: nobody cares about your career other than you, pay attention to the little warning signs when your boss starts being odd towards you, never accept the first package they offer you.
- packaged off from my third job with a financial institution. Learned: when in a financial crisis like 2008, don't work for the international arm of a US online brokerage firm that has shifted to making most of its money from investing its own capital in subprime because when the music stops they're going to have to sell off the international business to increase their odds of survival
- packaged off from my fourth full time job at yet another financial institution after having just done another expat stint outside the country, in a round of restructuring. Reaffirmed: the only one who cares about your career is you, corporations expect loyalty but offer none.
- unemployed for a year and a half because what I do is reasonably niche and nobody was hiring. Learned: there comes a point where you're willing to consider just about any job (school bus driver? I could do that. Wait.. It pays what?), A supportive spouse is worth her or his weight in diamonds during tough times, the stars will eventually align for you again if you can afford to wait them out, that I'm a slow learner because yes I'm at another financial institution now. So far, so good 😀
I was very young; I had a fever. I remember being placed on a counter so that my mother could purchase something. I looked down at my hands, then flipped them over to look at my palms. They were all red with white spots all over them. Then everything faded like in the movies when the screen creeps in from all corners to meet in the middle and goes to black. The next thing I remember from this traumatic experience was waking up in an oxygen tent with ice bags all around me and tubes coming from everywhere. I was going to survive the meningitis that was ravaging my tiny body.
Sometimes, now at 50 years old, I can look at my palms and I still see the little red hands with white spots. I am thankful to the doctors and the nurses who brought me back from the brink. I would have missed so much.
I was married in my late teens and divorced in my early twenties. When I was twenty-seven, my ex-wife's husband left a burning cigarette and my two sons in the house, alone. They perished at ages four and six.
I've had many years since to learn about forgiveness as well as trying to be thankful and content in all circumstances. This was not done in my own strength but in being rescued by God and a loving and supportive family.
Well, the pumpkin tip brings up another problem — the closed top of the pumpkin will absorb all the heat from the enclosed candle, creating a burning stench. (The fix for that would be to use LED candles.)
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes.
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes.
The closest I’ve come to no tomorrow was 19 years ago. At age 25, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. Even though it was benign, the brain is a finite space and all masses are dangerous. My surgery came with the risks of blindness, deafness, loss of facial movement, blinking…or the possibility of no tomorrow. It was frightening diagnosis and the decision was mine to agree to surgery - the only treatment for removal.
I had a wonderful and talented surgeon, coupled with the support of friends and family. I’m tumor free today (19 years and counting). I’ve taken that moment in my life as a choice to give back to those whom have had a diagnosis. I also embraced a more active lifestyle through running (having now completed a mix of races including a 50K—yes, fifty—and 40 mile runs). This experience is a gift to me, realizing that not all have the same outcomes
My daughter was diagnosed with a rare, permanent, and potentially fatal autoimmune condition when she was 12. It required a PICC line for chemo and roughly 12 daily medications. She was so fearful of getting an infection from the PICC line getting wet in the shower that she requested I give her a bath every night. After spending the day in bed severly depressed, I would tape a ziplock bag over the line and give her a bath. For 18 months. The conversations we had, while I was being the mom and holding a steady face and tone of voice, mind you, were incredibly intense. Life, death, the meaning of things, the why of things...and for a 12 and then 13 year old girl to need and allow her mom to give her a bath shows how scared she was. After she put on her jammies and I read her our special book, I would go into my bedroom and figuratively die. Ugly, gut-wrenching, from the soul cry until I fell asleep. How could I keep my girl from dying? My whole job is to keep her safe!
Takeaway: this was 9 years ago. My life has currently exploded harmfully in EVERY area, but she hasn't had a relapse in 5 years and my son is a happy little guy. It gave me perspective. Or I guess it gave me a bar of "what is the worst" that is so high, I hopefully will never top it. Even now, when my son, 2 ancient kitties, and I are facing homelessness due to our supportive housing closing down, I have 5 online classes, and cervical disc issues...am I discussing with my daughter what she would like me to remember about her if she died? No, no, I am not. We are all alive and as Tom Hanks character in "Castaway" so beautifully states, "I know what I have to do now. I've got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring."
Sidenote: If able, please support the Make-A-Wish Illinois chapter. When it was such a dark time, they granted her wish for a trip to Disney World...it gave us such a reprieve from our daily struggle. Restorative and very happy memories in a time when there weren't many.
Everyone, take care and be well.
After a successfull career in the federal government and then with a Fortune 200 company, I was fired from 6 jobs in a row, never lasting more than 2 years. I just didn't seem to fit in. It was then I decided I could only be my own boss and started my own firm 25 years ago and eventually went into business with a client/good friend that has led to a highly lucrative and successful life style enabling my wife and I to travel all over the world and send our kids too. I had to over come the fear of not getting a regular paycheck and believe in my self and stop trying to fit into a mold of others making but to do it my way. Don;t let others tell you "it can't be done"; believe in your own self when no one else will
In 2004 our 30-year-old daughter, married with three small children, had a brain stem stroke and was given 24 hours to live. Miraculously, she survived but they said she was locked-in and would never move below her eyes again. Miraculously, again, she can use her right hand and get around in a wheelchair. She has limited speech. Normally someone with her situation would have three tubes in her. She has none. She has a one in a million husband. She also has a blog to inspire people. It is jenannlynn.org.
That 10-yr old tattoo story, and the accompanying comments underneath it are enough internet for me today. Why, OH WHY did I have to go searching for the comment section on that?
I never learn. Smh
Thank you, and don't worry, my life is much more full of joy than pain. Your words add to that joy.
Yes. I remember having read the book, Alive, many years ago. As memory serves, I liked that the young man who wanted to become a doctor (and who did his best to be the medical expert for the crash victims), actually did follow through with his goal of becoming a physician.
With what I’ve read about the experiences of universal basic income from various sources, KUDOS to L.A. for considering this for their at risk young people … and that they’re targeting a population who is doing their best to move forward in their lives, despite their disadvantaged past.