Quote of the Week

“Retire from your job, not from life.” — Margaret Johnson, Dunedin, Fla.

Quote of the Week

“Walk at least a little way down into the Grand Canyon; don’t just stay up on the rim.” — Stephen Edgerton, Chapel Hill, N.C.

“The Stories We Leave Behind”

.When the World of Fantasy and Reality Collide

Sometimes the world of fantasy and reality collide in a most unexpected way. Over the last 2 weeks I lost a good friend and neighbor, then my cousin passed away. I recorded an episode of one of my favorite TV shows, NCIS, but didn’t view it until Feb 25 which was after my 2 people were gone. It was a memorial to one of the characters who played a prominent role on the show for years. (NCIS ep on Feb 19  “The Stories We Leave Behind” was a memorial to the character of coroner Dr. Donald Ducky Mallard, David McCullum passed away in real life last year and this was the way they honored him and wrote him out of the show) It was the best episode they ever had written and had me in tears because it reflected exactly how I was feeling in my loss. Here are 2 quotes from that ep that hit me hard but is advice we all should take to heart when we lose someone:
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“We all die twice: Once when our bodies give out, then again when our stories stop being told. So keep the good doctor with us by sharing his stories.”
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“All we have in the end are the stories we leave behind. We also have the lives we touched while we were here” – Tony DiNozzo
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This is my poem about remembering those who have passed through our lives
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The Memory Keeper’s Promise
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Your life was a wondrous, magical, mystical Journey.
It gave us love and laughter, and memories
That will live forever.
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Our experiences together through earthly time,
Left within us a piece of you.
Like a many faceted jewel set within a brooch,
These memories catch light,
Refract it and shine it outward.
When we remember you, we hold this jewel,
Turn it, admire it.
And it sparkles in the darkness of our despair.
A light to those who must now walk without you.
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Your name can be carved in marble or etched into plexiglass,
But what does that say of your soul?
Who were you and what did your life mean to your loved ones,
To others, to humanity?
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It is in our memories, that the spark of who you were is kept burning.
Deep within us the precious bits of your/our existence together,
Remains alive.
You did not “go quietly into that dark night…”
For your memory is a flame lighting up the recesses of our souls.
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As long as one living person remembers you, you will not die.
It is this memory I will carry with me and share with others.
This I promise: you will never be forgotten.
And your light will shine across time and space
For we are….always and never….touching and touched….
                                                        @Leona M Seufert

Quote of the Week

Here in NJ we finally got snow! A lot. So here is a quote from Edgar Cahill about how the Scandinavian painter Jonas Lie viewed snow:

“He has always loved snow, feeling, as Scandinavians do, that snow is the year’s coat of ermine, the white mantle that protects…he sees more than the pictorial side of snow, he sees its whiteness, its stillness, its rich lusciousness.”

Meditate on that when you shovel out after our next storm!

Quote of the week

From the NY Times morning newsletter Sat 12/30/2023

We are all juggling so many balls. Differentiate between glass balls and rubber balls — and don’t be afraid to drop the rubber balls. — Kathryn Cunningham, Carrboro, N.C.

Quote of the Week

Be a fountain, not a drain. — Christine Clemens, Lowville, N.Y.

Quote of the Week

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step!” – Anonymous

Quote of the Week

On Flying Through the Heavens
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Traveling by plane continues to present hassles. Weather problems, runway close encounters between planes, delayed or cancelled flights. And yet in spite of it all, it is still the way most people choose to travel from point A to point B either for vacation or work. Wired magazine(July/Aug 2023, The Unparalleled Squareness of Pete Buttigieg) had a great interview with Pete Buttigieg who is the US secretary of transportation. One of the questions Virginia Heffernan asked him was “Are there more ways the challenges of transportation speak to your spiritual side?” Here is his reply:
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“Something about movement, something about travel pulls us out of the routines that numb us to who we are, to what we’re doing, to everything in our relationships with each other, to our relationships with God. That’s part of the reason why so many important things in the Bible happen on highways.
And then journeys – they’re also just marvels. Every flight is a marvel that pulls us out of that in the same way that religious rituals, holidays, liturgies are one kind of routine that pulls us out of another kind of routine. When you get on a plane, people buckle their seat belts and listen to the flight attendant’s very predictable pronouncements. It’s routine. It’s almost a ritual, right? And yet you’re preparing to fly through the heavens.”
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Makes you see taking a plane to visit grandma in a whole different light, now doesn’t it?

Quote of the Week

A good quote for our times:
“That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.” – Thomas Jefferson (on the U.S. Congress)

CNN Town Hall Mon Night

Chris Christie laid it in on Trump! He did not avoid mentioning his name numerous times during the 1 ½ hour town hall on CNN last night. But the comment from him that I loved was “…Trump and Biden…they are past their ‘sell by dates’ ”!