Time Well Spent

Give everyday like it might be your last; one day it will be.

 

Author’s note: The following letter is written for my two youngest daughters, in honor of my eldest daughter, Alisha, who would be twenty today. 

Dear Sianna and Lia,

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to give.

Since you will never get to meet your big sister here on Earth, I thought I would fill you in a little on her life.  If you recall nothing else from this letter, remember your sister as the girl who loved to give. 

We all will be remembered for something, good or bad, and in my opinion she lived seven years better than some live seventy seven.

Her name was Alisha Erin.

It was nearly thirteen years ago when Alisha Erin and I last talked on April 28^th, 2000.  She had just celebrated her seventh birthday the week before and was anxious to go to the local pharmacy with me while I ran some errands.  During our last true moment together I became her personal chauffeur and watched firsthand as she did what she loved to do most- GIVE.

She was a tornado in a dress.

She waited as best she could for me to finish my business, but the birthday money Alisha had just received was burning a hole in her pocket.  The main reason she had come was to buy some snacks for the evening.  Her smile let me know she was pleased with her purchase of chips and crackers, so we began our march toward the register.  I can still see Alisha with her pink purse belt strapped around the waist of her dress, as she skipped and danced her way to the checkout counter, like she was dancing with a tornado.

Alisha had brown hair and blue eyes.

After Alisha paid for the items something wonderful happened in her seven year old world; she received some quarters back in change.  With a big smile she asked me, “Daddy can we play the crane game?”  How could I say no to the girl with brown hair and blue eyes whose spirit and appearance was similar to my own?  We left the pharmacy and ventured to the neighboring department store lobby.  The crane game is a simple piece of equipment.  You insert a quarter, direct the arrows, push a button to make the crane drop and hopefully you end up with a load of candy.  “Play till you win”, the slogan read.  If only life were that simple.  As normal, Alisha took her time putting the quarter in to the game.

She had a deep, raspy voice.

After several near misses the crane hit pay dirt and she captured a piece of toffee.  It was a flavor I did not care for and secretly hoped she would eat it herself.  Then in the parking lot she asked me if I wanted the candy in her deep, raspy voice which I had to strain to hear.  At first I refused, but after noticing her frown I quickly changed my mind.  When I popped the horrid piece of toffee into my mouth I turned away so she wouldn’t see me grimace.  This would have a bitter after taste that would last for quite a while, but my heart was smiling.

She had an infectious giggle.  

Putting you kids to bed is a responsibility I cherish.  With that being said Alisha and I had a special bedtime tradition.   It was during these special times at bedtime that she had fallen in love with a particular story about a squirrel named Jimmy Joe Bob.   Jimmy was a little squirrel about Alisha’s age that had a problem; he never listened to his mommy and always paid the price.  These were silly stories at best, but in Alisha’s little world a good night was one story, a great night was two.  The premise of the story was quite simple as I used the stories to teach her the importance of obedience. Then, I would tuck her into bed and she would wrap her arms around me and tell me she was never going to let me go and she would let out this infectious giggle, while I tried to wiggle free.  

Alisha could be a little stinker at times. 

During our final moment together, after she had fallen into a deep sleep called a coma, it was only natural for me to share with her a Jimmy Joe Bob story.  Her heart and mine were soaring for one last magnificent time.  Her final bedtime story went a lot like this:  There was once a little girl who knew a squirrel named Jimmy Joe Bob.  They were best of friends and had a lot of great times together, but the time had come for the little girl to leave.   It was time for her to go and live with Jesus.”  Nothing happened.  So, I told her with tears welling up in my eyes,” Alisha, Jimmy thinks it is time for you to go.  It’s OK you can go now,” giving her my permission.  Yet, she stayed.  As she had done so many times before, I believe the little stinker was holding out for a second story, she wasn’t ready to say goodnight or in this instance, goodbye.

She loved the tooth fairy, hated the pain.

Then there is the story about the tooth, the last gift she personally gave to me. You are both now at the age when you can’t wait to hit up the tooth fairy for some loose change. Alisha was no different, except she hated the pain. In the weeks before Alisha died, she and I struggled to remove her last remaining front tooth. I would wiggle the tooth, she would scream, I would stop. This painful dance would happen over and over again, yet I couldn’t free the tooth.

Alisha had the best wrap around hugs.

A funny thing happened moments after I told Alisha her final bedtime story. One of the nurses approached me with a gift from Alisha, with her head down and her hand closed. As she opened her hand, there was that pesky tooth. To me it was like a wraparound hug, a big thank you from Alisha for letting her go.  Mind you, I would have much rather paid her the buck, the going rate in our house for a front tooth, but it was what I so sorely needed at that moment.

She loved to dance with her daddy. 

Alisha and I had another special thing we liked to do. Every time the credits rolled for the Disney movie, Tarzan, we danced while Phil Collins sang “You’ll Be in My Heart.”  The credits are that brief moment where you take a deep breath and replay all the highlights of the movie before you must re-enter life.  A funny thing about that song is that those are the last words I ever spoke to Alisha before she died. So, anytime I hear that song, You’ll Be in My Heart” on the radio or wherever  I am it reminds me that one day I will dance with her again, someday. However, this time I look forward to us all dancing in Heaven with Alisha, when we are altogether. 

Alisha’s life was time well spent.

This story is my gift to you from Alisha, so if you ever forget you now have a reminder.  Remember, like Alisha, make your life time well spent.

Love, your Dad

(Swavel)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lift and Move

Better to say little and do a lot, then say a lot and do little.

Before we turn the page on winter allow me to relay one last cold weather story. 

One bitterly cold winter morning, when I was about eighteen and attending a Bible School located in the Adirondacks of New York; my whole dorm was awakened by a hysterical roommate. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to learn a very valuable lesson.

As fate would have it, this roommate was the sound man for our meeting hall and when he went to open the back door of the hall he couldn’t get in. To his absolute horror, he had just discovered that all the entries were blocked from the inside by heavy, stackable wooden benches. Panic began to set in because in a few hours the entire campus would need to get in to participate in classes. 

Quite frankly it was a well-designed prank for the ages. The manner in which the unknown culprits kept us out was ingenious as they piled all the benches on top of one another creating a virtual wall. Then somehow, one of them, with the size and agility of a monkey, crawled up over the last bench and closed the door.

Faced with a major dilemma one of our dorm supervisors concocted a brilliant plan. If we pulled together, putting our anger and frustration to work, we could put the meeting hall back together in less than an hour. That way we could still make breakfast and no one would be any the wiser.  His thought was that if we acted quickly setting things right the other students would never find out about it and the pranksters would lose. The lack of a reaction would be our victory.

Fortunately, we had a few monkeys in our dorm as well and they were able to get up over the wall of benches and eventually remove some layers so the rest of us could climb up and over.  Once inside, the plan worked flawlessly as we all seemed to work together not complaining, hustling, lifting and moving. In about half hour the meeting hall was restored back to normalcy, like nothing had ever happened.

To the best of my knowledge no one ever found out who pranked our school. However, there was quiet satisfaction among those of us who knew the truth in knowing tragedy had been averted.  In essence, we turned the tables, aka the benches, on the pranksters.

Since I led with a cold weather story, now I would like to share a spring related one, more befitting of the weather. While at that same school later that same year, Steve, a fellow student who hailed from the Bronx, told me an interesting lesson he had learned thanks in part to a tree stump.

As the story goes Steve was clearing some brush for a friend, which required that he push a heavily loaded wheel barrow uphill on a narrow path. However, much to his chagrin, he was running into an unavoidable problem, which was a pesky tree stump, that was smack dab in the middle of the path. Every time he would make his trek he inevitably would hit the stump which would make his load capsize causing him to get furious. Try as he might the path always lead him to the same point where he would meet disaster.

If memory serves, eventually he bit the bullet and just applied the principle of lift and move and tore the stump out.  He was done talking about the problem and the situation needed to be resolved.  Further stated, no amount of talk would fix it, only delay the process.

To close things out, here is one last story. It comes from the Bible about Jesus. In the book of Luke there is a great story about a man who is paralyzed and what his friends did to help him.

Jesus, who was known for his healing many people who had been blind, deaf, mute, demon possessed or just beyond human help for their ailment, was in town.  He was teaching inside someone’s home and people from all over the country side crowded in to hear what he had to say. Since the paralyzed man could not walk it was impossible to get their friend though the mass of people in his condition. However, these men were going to stop at nothing till they got their friend to the only one who could truly give him the help he so badly needed.

I can only imagine how many times people had tried to comfort the paralytic man by telling him how sorry they felt for him. They may have even wished they could help, but then did nothing.  His friends on the other hand were men of action. They were not going to let a crowd, a full house and a roof stop them. So, without a moment to lose, they tore off the roof and attached ropes to his mat and lowered him down through the ceiling.

Seeemingly Jesus was so taken by this act of faith and persistence that these men displayed that he promptly healed the paralyzed man. The Bible says immediately the once paralyzed man got up, picked up his mat and walked home. When the man’s friends applied the principle of lift and move Jesus obliged and granted their request of a miracle.

In life, just like in the stories above, hard work and persistence tend to pay off more times than not.  So, when it comes time to take action, you better be lifting and moving.

You get what you pay for.in life, for example: talk is cheap and hard work is its own reward.

Swavel

 

What solely matters

 

Contrary to popular belief, to look cool on the outside does nothing to enhance who you are on the inside.

Here are a few examples of incorrect thinking concerning what solely matters:

During my high school years I had plenty of issues.   However, one of the biggest was the fact that I was a nerd and didn’t like that my shoes were not the latest fashion.  I had this false hope that if, somehow, I could get the sneakers that were in style, suddenly all my troubles would go away.

So, a few days before tenth grade, I went to the local shoe barn in search of that elusive resolution to being cool.  With my dad in tow, we walked in and worked our way toward the back, ducking under several pairs of fishing boots hanging in the aisle over head, till we found the sneaker section.  It was there that I discovered a pair of Nike canvas sneakers, with a beige swoosh and a rubber front and thought I just had to have them.   Accordingly, I debated with my dad making every logical argument I could because he was dead set against them since he felt they were too much and just not his style.  Who knows why, but eventually he changed his mind and got them for me.

To this day, I can still remember sitting in the den the night before school was to begin watching TV holding my new sneakers and just feeling cooler.  Unfortunately, the next day when I got to school no one seemed to treat me any better because now I wore a pair of sneakers with a swoosh on them.  The fact remained I may have been wearing cool shoes, but I was still a nerd, just wearing cool shoes.  Who I really was had not changed, I may have felt better, but that’s about it.

Another example of thinking something you can purchase can make you better is the Michael Jordan commercial from the 1980’s.  It’s the one where a young Spike Lee, aka Mars, is constantly questioning Michael Jordan throughout the thirty minute commercial trying to uncover what makes him the best player in the universe.  He asks if it’s his socks or his baggy shorts or haircut, etc.  Constantly coming back with the line, “it’s got to be the shoes,” to which Michael says, “no Mars.”  Ironically the commercial is suggesting that if you want to be like Mike, you need these shoes.   In essence Michael was right it’s not the shoes, but there were a lot of young men back in the day, who just had to have them anyway.

 Here are a few examples of correct thinking concerning what solely matters:

A more accurate account of what solely matters in life was set by another athlete, Michael Chang, one time French open winner.  Years ago, I heard a story about him when he chose to think of another over himself.  It was during a tennis tournament when he gave a pair of his own shoes to fellow athlete who was in need of them.  To me, Chang had a depth about him that defines cool; he chose to give of himself.  Rather than just trying to look good, he was seeking to do good for others.  If memory serves it was an deed that long out lived his career.

On a more serious note, just the other day I went to the viewing of a seventeen year old boy who had just months before been healthy.  He suddenly had contracted a mysterious disease, which later turned out to be a form of a severe immunodeficiency disorder and he went to be with Jesus last week.  However, when I was at his viewing I was encouraged that his parents, whom I had grown up with, had laid a shirt in his casket which read: This body is just a rental.  This young man and his family knew what solely matters in life and death.

Just the other day this same thought was reinforced as I was listening online to a pastor by the name of Francis Chan.  As he was speaking Francis made mention of a story on a similar vein about soul matters.  He said that he had a friend, Frank Pastore, an ex major league baseball pitcher for the Reds and now a national radio host, that was speaking about how our body is not as important as our soul. To get the full effect of his friend’s words he played the live audio.

Here is what he said in paraphrased form.  Frank was talking about how that his body was temporary and that his soul is the real him.  Then, out of the blue, he made a statement that if he were to drive his motorcycle home and get hit by a car and die that his real body would not be the one dead on the highway.  Hours later what he said, in jest, literally happened when he was hit by a car on his motorcycle and weeks later died from the pending injuries. Yet, Frank Pastore spoke the truth: that was just his body, his soul was with God.

Fashion aside, in the end, what solely matters is whether your soul is right with God or not. 

Swavel