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Life These Days... And a Smile!

So as life moves on these days, I have done a lot of reflection.  Facebook Memories are a great thing, but also at times scary, a lot of emotions can sometimes occur when these come up.
From these memories I have happy times (family and friends), scary times (Eric in the hospital and the unknown), sad and happy memories (loss of loved ones yet the memories of us together) and hopeful memories (Eric getting his heart and the promise of new adventures).
There are so many things that have occurred in my life, struggles I never thought I would endure much less make it through (car accident that almost killed me), sadness and loss but so many happy and fun memories.  I have had a career I love for 25+ years that has fulfilled me. I never had children of my own, but through my career I have helped raise hundreds of children (without the excess funds 😋)
But frequently things don't end up like we planned.  No one plans to fall in love with someone who will eventually need a heart transplant, but you do what you need to do.  And how someone responds to what they are handed defines who they are.  We all have a past, and we all handled our past differently, and that is what is.  We can't go back, all we can do is go forward and make the best of what we have and are given.
I made mistakes in my past, but I tried to never let those mistakes define who I became but form who I wanted to be.  I always wanted to be better than I could.  I know I let my parents down at times, but in the end, I hope I made them proud.  My parents, most notably my dad, always worried about me being ok.  I have a voicemail saved from my mom the day of Eric's transplant, telling me how she prayed to my dad all night to wrap his wings around their baby girl.  That tells me I did something right to make them proud...
When working with my kids, I have learned a phrase from an employee...
          We can't control how others treat us, we can only control our reaction to how we are treated!
Through this all, I only hope that I have held myself to a standard that can earn respect.  I admittedly put others before myself taking importance off of my own health, and gained my weight back and let my physical health slide.  I promised myself I wasn't going to let that happen so I could take care of Eric, but in the end I failed at that.  But I finally realized, in my fight or flight (with many chats with friends at the gym) it wasn't my fault, but my survival mode.  And now that we are in recovery mode, I am back on track, for health, with Eric.
So through this all, my (and hopefully) anyone's goal, is to just be happy. Life is too short to be sad, unhappy, scared and angry,  I have experienced unexpected loss of people in my family way too young to be gone and I try to honor them
daily.  But in the end, I just try to live my life as the best me and make sure that anyone I come in contact with is left with a smile.  Because these days, all everyone needs is smile!

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