Deep Thoughts

I don't usually read a newspaper, but occasionally they accumulate in my drive & if I don't toss them quickly, my hunny will bring them inside. So, while paging through the first one of the new year, I found & read a wonderful piece about love, loss & life.

A man, named Dean Martin as luck would have it, woke up Memorial Day 2009 to a normal day filled with anticipation for the upcoming birth of his first child, a son, within the week. He & his wife had planned a fairly simple quiet day & began it by reviewing & discussing baby boy names. At the top of the short list that day was 'Austin'.

By early afternoon, his wife was suffering abdominal pain that didn't seem anything like labor that sent them scurrying to the emergency room. As the afternoon wore on, the tests and the pain increased without relief or explanation. By early evening, as Dean watched in horror as his wife's life essence relentlessly slipped away, tiny unborn, unknown Austin began showing signs of distress. Though emergency surgery was performed in an effort to save Austin, he survived only 51 hours and l5 minutes to later die in his father's arms. Dean's wife died before midnight that same day. The culprit was found to be a benign tumor on her liver that had burst.

All these facts I read with mounting anxiety as they presented Dean's story to me. I didn't ask for this mental trauma that morning. I was after-all just paging through an unwanted newspaper because I truly had nothing other to do and his unusual name drew my attraction to the piece.

I was in the end, grateful for the interruption of my peaceful Saturday morning. Dean turned out to be quite a teacher of emotional insightfullness. To quote Dean as he was quoted when asked 'the why of it all?'

"Maybe this happened because I was in a position to show people how to keep going,"he says. "I don't know that I have any answers or that I am doing it the right way." The things he's learned:

You never really get back to normal. It is with you always. A diaper commercial on TV can be like a punch in the gut.

You can never have enough life insurance.

You have to put one foot in front of the other, even if you don't know where you are going.

Mmmm. Put 'one foot in front of the other -- even if you don't where you are going.' I'd say that's about the best piece of advice I've ever heard from one of the 'Walking Wounded', as I like to refer to those of us who have survived life traumas. And really, who hasn't?

So, if a man who arose one peaceful morning in May only to have his family, his life, his world in shreds by day's end to admit & counsel such simple, wonderful words of wisdom, then I'm oh so happy to have taken the time and effort to read, no, to relive his story & learn what he learned. And I'm grateful to have taken the opportunity to share it with you all on this wonderful first Sabbath Day in the New Year 2011.

Gratitude is the Attitude of Charity. May we all practice more gratitude this year for all our blessings, but especially our blessings of family and loved ones. And if we can't feel an attitude of gratitude, then may we at least, "...put one foot in front of the other, even if you don't know where you are going," until you reach the Godly Grace of Gratitude. May God Bless you richly in this new year.

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