for me.

I don't know the usual or proper blogger etiquette on whether posting twice in two days is okay or not, but I'm going to do it any ways.

Going back to my original post I included a very special poem entitled 'Learn with every goodbye', I want to talk about it a little bit. I first heard the poem after Rachel had passed; it had been one of her favourites. I thought it was beautiful, but I never really connected with what it was trying to achieve. I guess the meaning didn’t resonate with me. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago when I took the time to re-read it that I realized that there is nothing closer to the truth. I believe it’s because after losing Rach it was only my first goodbye (I tend to refer to death as the final goodbye), and even though I learned some very important things from her death, I didn’t realize that in the future losing someone else would provide me with another slew (I like that word!) of challenges and lessons.

Now that I’ve taken the time to kind of analyze the meanings within the poem I believe it beautifully narrates just how I feel in this time and place, which is that sometimes futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight, and that’s probably been the hardest thing about losing Walter, is that I was beginning to make decisions as ‘us’ rather than myself. But losing him, as painful as it is, has allowed me to be the proudest I’ve ever been of myself because I learned what I really can endure (even though sometimes I feel like I can’t), and that I really am strong, that I really do have worth, and I learn, and will continue to learn, with every goodbye, I will learn.

Lesson #1: differentiating what is important from what is not

After Rachel passed away I began living my life differently. I began noticing that my perspective on life had really changed. I actually have a very funny story. The weekend after the funeral, I was driving up north to see a friend, and goodness the drive was long. As you will learn if you continue to read or if you already know me, I am a VERY very VERY impatient person. The ETA on the GPS isn’t an arrival time; it’s a try and beat me time. On the way up I managed to get stopped for speeding (okay come on it’s an 80 km/hr one lane hwy in the middle of nowhere and no one else driving on it!). The cop was nice enough to decrease it, but I still got dinged for it. Oh well it didn’t really phase me. Kept driving, and in an effort to make sure I wouldn’t get another ticket I was gearing down when the speed limit decreased and increasing speed accordingly. Well stupid me forgot to go back up into 5^th gear and I stayed in 4^th gear for a substantial amount of time. I started to smell burning, then some other funky stuff happened, and all the gauges started going crazy, and there you have it people a broken down car. I was in the middle of nowhere and about thirty minutes from my destination, oh and to top it off I had no cell reception. I thought I was screwed! Seconds later the first car I had seen in almost thirty minutes drove up and I flagged them down. They didn’t help me much, but as they were pulling away an OPP cruiser pulled up. Phewf! (must of had a horse shoe up my ass that day). Anyways the short story is that I sat there in the car waiting for a tow truck and wrote in my journal and I laughed. I didn't worry about how much it was going to cost me to fix + tow, and I didn't care how cold I was getting, I just laughed. I recognized my new outlook immediately. At that point I had realized the difference between what was important and what was not. And it turns out money (the car cost me $1000 to tow and repair) isn’t important. Sure it puts a roof over your head and gets you cool clothes or gadgets but all in all I knew that the news of how much this would cost me wouldn’t be considered ‘bad’ news in my books. It seemed as if my scale of extremes kind of extended itself and my tolerance for bad news shifted significantly.

Do I wish that I could have learned this without losing someone? Everyday. But am I thankful for the things that I do learn? Without a doubt. So try this for me. When something happens, sit back and take a little extra time to assess if what has happened is really important enough to cause you angst or sadness. I believe that once we take the time (I mean really take the time) to acknowledge what is really important in life it is then that we are able to live happier and more meaningful lives.

All you need is love.

I love you Wally, until we meet again.