It’s November 10, 2014 and I’ve been having my Sunday on a Monday. I’ve been working Sundays lately for a veteran’s association as a fundraiser. Tough job. All day on Sunday, while others are shopping and gardening and watching football and going on hikes by the river, I stand outside a store and ask for donations to “support our troops and veterans.” It’s tough to hear no, but I hear it—all day long. The one statement that really pierces me to the core is, “No thanks.” I think, NO THANKS? What if my brother—who went missing in Vietnam 46 years ago—had said, “No thanks,” when the USMC sent him, at age 19, halfway around the world to fight a war that should never have been? If he’d simply said, “no thanks,” perhaps he’d be here today with me. That’s what I think whenever someone says with an I-couldn’t-care-less attitude, “No thanks.” So, here I am on a Monday, “goofing off” as some would say—reading articles about Arlington National Cemetery and their 150 th anniversary, then bouncing over to watch a tribute video about Robin Williams, and crying—again—as I watch his glorious smile as he says, “Make your life SPECTACULAR; I know I did.” I think of my sister, Vicky, who left this earth two years ago. Cancer. I think of my mother who left 17 years ago. Cancer. I think of my father who left 18 years ago. Emphysema. And my nephew, Christopher who recklessly killed himself, and a girlfriend, riding on his motorcycle. I long for love and tenderness, passion and glorious things. I want to make my life “SPECTACULAR” because I know not how long I have left on this earth. Yesterday, as I drove to my fundraising job, I passed glorious fields filled with soft brown cows sleeping drowsily in the morning sun; I gasped at brilliant, flaming orange pistache trees and listened to red-winged blackbirds and gulls and felt the November sun warm me. So many gifts were bestowed on me. Today, I am flipping the switch—no matter how large FEAR looms—I will not leave this earth without filling my cup to the brim with laughter and love and friends and risk and all the other things I’ve been putting off—waiting for just the right time. Time to LEAP! Will I hit the ground? Or will I fly like Robin Williams in “Hook”?
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