Dying Man’s Daily Journal – My request for a birthday present.

A few that have followed the blog for a while may remember back to last year. December 13th. is my birthday and this year as I did last year I am make a very specific request of anyone and everyone that may read this to give me a birthday present. In fact this year I am getting greedier and am going to actually ask for 2 presents. Hey, I am turning the big 55 and that is something for me to celebrate. I made it to 55 and I think I do deserve a present, so here is what I ask:

Gift #1: I know each and everyone of us perform countless acts of kindness every day. But, there just never can be to much kindness spread around the world. My request is that everyone actually go out of their way to look for an opportunity to do something just a little extra. How big, or how small doesn’t matter. Any act of kindness is an act of love, from a loving heart. We would all like to see the world changed to a better place. How can we possibly hope to have anything change, if we don’t start to do things differently. If we all just continue to do the same thing in the same way day after day, nothing will ever change, how can it or why would it?

Everything we do in life has a ripple effect be it positive or negative. It affects those around us, who pass it on to the next, who pass it on, on and on it goes. One single act can be passed on to more people than we can imagine.

Please let us, each start our own little ripple. All of our individual little ripples, when joined all together could create a flood of kindness that just floods the world.

Our world is filled with so many wonderful people, it just shines. Every act of kindness makes it shine just a little brighter, every such act does in fact make the world just a little a bit better place to live. Can we take the world from just shining and make it absolutely glow? Please, lets try, it can take hardly an individual effort at all.

To me, merely knowing even one little extra act of kindness was extended, will be the most precious thing I could ask for.

Not feeling so spry, so I will continue this later of possibly tomorrow with my second request.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Prayer request

I ask again please for prayers for my cousin Mike. He currently lies in a coma in the intensive care unit of a Calgary hospital. In the past week he has under gone 3 emergency operations. Two on his heart and one to check his kidneys. His kidneys have completely shut down. I spoke with my cousin Fran (his sister) last night and she tells me the doctors only give him a 20-25% chance of survival. His sisters, Fran, Marge and Judy are in Calgary with him.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – One hour to Live

Vi and I are both very exited. My Aunt Isabel is coming into the city and will be blessing us with her company. I call her visit a blessing and I mean that. Just having the pleasure of her company will be wonderful in itself, BUT this will also be a very important weekend. At some point the cards and the crib board will be coming out. I have written in the past of how twice her and I have gone head to head playing crib, for the CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD. Both times she took this coveted championship title home with her. I am determined this time will be different and I in fact will become the new champion. It might be asked, how could a card game played at our kitchen table be classified as being for the championship of the world. The answer to that is very easy. When ever we play cards we play by the house rules. This is my house and I rule it to be for the championship, simple as that. lol

I have stumbled across something very thought provoking. It is a simple question posted on another blog, that of psychscribe. You would think if anyone would have an answer to this, it should be me, but I don’t. Here is the question:

You have one hour to live,

….and you can make one…just one phone call….the most important phone call of your rapidly ending life.  Who will you call, and what will you say that you never said until now?

Many will just brush this off with the thought, “that isn’t happening to me, it is just to morbid, I don’t even want to think about it.” As upsetting or unpleasant that thought may be, I ask all to take a couple of minutes and try to image being in that situation. Now first off say a little prayer of thanks that you really aren’t in that situation, be grateful as some are in that position.

I ask just take a couple of minutes and really try to imagine this. Don’t just gloss over it and come up with an instant pat answer like, “I would phone my spouse or one of my kids”. Give it some real thought. Maybe, phoning your spouse or one of your kids is your ultimate answer and fair enough. But then, what if you are like me and have more than one kid?

Imagine what you thoughts might be at that time, so who do you call and what would you say?  Now, I know this is a tough question, one that is maybe even impossible to answer unless you are actually in that situation. Let’s face it, every day there are traffic accidents and all sort of things that could suddenly place each and everyone of us in that exact situation.

You would think with my health situation, I would have a plan in place for just such a time. But, I don’t. There would be so many phone calls I would like to make, how to narrow it down to just one.

What would I say, I know it would be feelings of love, likely appologize over past issues, issues that at the time would have seemed so big, but now suddenly would be meaningless. How my priorities would have changed. I know I would be so full of regret over not being able to speak to so many others.Realizing I would suddenly never be able to really express my love and gratitude for having them in my life. Suddenly, realizing it is now to late to make amends or patch up old really meaningless grievances. Suddenly, the real love for and importance of the people in my life would shine through. I would realize with regret, how often I had merely taken them for granted. They will always be there and now suddenly I realize they won’t. Why did I leave it until it was to late to express my love and gratitude? Why did I leave it until the point where, I am forced to accept the fact the last words I spoke to a loved on were maybe words of anger? Why, Why, Why?????
I am not sure where I heard it, or read it. But, I think it was a story of a Budhist monk. He started every morning with a simple question to himself. Will today be the day? Will today be the day I die or am killed? Now you have to understand the context. It wasn’t posed in a morbid way, but more as a reminder to himself, a very positive reminder. As I go through this day I want it to be a day filled with love and gratitude, leaving nothing unsaid, finish each day with no regrets.

When I hit that final hour, I want to have no regrets of things undone or unsaid. I want to be able to lay back peacefully and enjoy the sight of the Heavenly Angels as they come for me.

I know this may be hard and sad, but I ask, I invite all to share your thoughts.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – A Heart breaking story

Mother Nature has delivered winter to us. Actually, considering we live in Canada, it has been a beautiful fall. It is only in the past week or so that the snow has started to arrive and the bottom fell out of the thermometer. By the weekend we are supposed to hit -28. If we have any wind with that, will drop it even further, even the -40′s isn’t out of the question. I know many have never experienced temperatures like that. I imagine it would be considered just awful, but really if you dress for it, it isn’t that bad. Actually, I enjoy breathing in that cold crisp air. Well, that is unless it get to cold and then with my breathing I just can’t seem to catch my breath. I am obviously a Canadian as here I am talking about how cold it can get and therefor showing how hardy we are. “yup, I am a Canadian, we are a hardy tough bunch. We thrive on the cold, minus 20 is still picnic weather.” OK, maybe I am exaggerating just a little with the picnic thing. Though, as I am sitting here a memory just hit me, it really isn’t an exaggeration. It was Vi’s birthday, 3 or 4 years ago. We were at her sister, Debbie’s home, they live on an acreage just out to Winnipeg. For her birthday, Vi decided she wanted an outdoor wiener roast. A hotdog when roasted over an open fire, ah nothing better. Nothing really unusual about that except her birthday is February 4th.. I know the temperatures were in the -40′s and with one wicked wind, who knows what the windchill factor was. A few strategically placed vehicles, a roaring bond fire and a really great time was had. Man, are us Canadians ever tough.

I haven’t done much visiting lately, but really hope to change that in the next few days. Yesterday, though I saw an unknown name on the visitors list. I clicked on the site to see who it was. It details a very heart wrenching, almost painful to read ongoing story. It chronicles the ongoing story of Marisa and her battle with cancer. Please check it out and give her your support at Marisa

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Responsibility/Choices

The past few days have really been “thinking” days for me. I have spent a lot of time reflect back on my life in the past, my current situation and my future. A realization has come to me, I am very good at making excuses for myself. I suppose it is my way of rationalizing my actions or in-actions, thoughts and feelings in many cases. By rationalizing everything out in my head, it becomes easier to make up excuses to myself and make me feel a little better about myself. Is it a way of mentally and emotionally allowing me to avoid taking responsibility for my action or what ever. It seems my excuse usually means laying all of the blame on someone else. I can make my self feel better with this making of excuses. Thoughts like, “I only did that because he/she did what they did, its not my fault I acted like such a jerk, what did they expect.” Ahh, there I feel better, it was someone else’s fault that I act like I did. Now once I have laid the blame, I can absolve myself of any and everything. I just wasn’t my fault. They made me do it.

Sometimes reality can give you a real bite in the butt. That comes when you honestly sit and realize no one makes you do anything. Believe me, I know there are many situations or circumstance when at the time, it can so easily seem like “they” are making me act as I am. There can be circumstances where we just instantly react, seemingly with no thought given. That is a fair statement, but it still doesn’t mean you were forced to react as you did.

When it comes right down to it I must accept responsibility for the fact that I and only I am responsible for my actions. I must accept the fact we always have choices. In every given situation, event or circumstance in the past, I had choices to make (whether it seemed like it a the time or not) and at the time I made the choice that I did based on what ever logic I had going on at the time. Really, I have no one I can blame but myself.

As I am sitting here I have to wonder, why is it we always seem to find it necessary to place blame. If something in my life doesn’t go according to my plan, someone is to blame be it myself or others, but blame must be put in place. As I think, I realize how ridiculous, even hypocritical of me is that. Part of my prayer routine includes the Lord’s Prayer. In it I am very clearly praying, asking that God’s will be done in my life. Even with this when something doesn’t go exactly according to MY plan, I must find someone to blame. I know within myself I have come a long way on this and seldom assess blame anywhere, but I still have much to do.

I pray others will take a good hard look at their own lives and become more accepting of the reality of life and quite assigning pointless, counter productive blame, and I do mean not even on ourselves.

Many I am sure will jump up and down shouting my situation is different, you don’t know my circumstances. “Someone, anyone, everyone is to blame for my life being as it is, certainly not me.” I just ask, take a really hard honest look, is that really true or are you making excuses as I so often do.

Another, thought has just popped into this empty head of mine. Every thing I am writing of, I am applying to or thinking of the general happenings in life.

To be clear, I recognize there are some very obvious and legitimate exceptions. Crime, natural disasters, accidents, many things can affect each and everyone of us. Merely, one example of what I would consider an exception and a very big and important exception would be say the case of a woman being raped or a child molested. I would NEVER, NEVER think or suggest the victim of such a horrific act, assume any responsibility, NONE what so ever. Here important choices come into play but only in how to deal with the aftermath.

My prayers are with all as they face a day of choices.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – A lesson in life

Not feeling so spry today, will just share a wonderful email, I received. The message is wonderful, pretty much says it all. Again I am not aware of the original source or due credit would be given.
Lessons on Life

There was an Cherokee Chief who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn
not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest.., in
turn..,
to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son
went in the Winter, the second in the Spring, the third in Summer,
and the youngest son in the Fall.When they had all gone and come back, he
called them together to describe what they had seen. The first son said
that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.The second son said “no” it was
covered with green buds and full of promise.The third son disagreed; he
said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so
sweet and looked so beautiful. It was the most graceful thing he had ever
seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and
drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The Chief then explained to
his sons that they were all right, because they had
each seen but only one season in the tree’s life.  He told them that you
cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence
of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from
that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If
you give up when it’s Winter, you will miss the promise of your Spring,
the beauty of your Summer, the fulfillment of your Fall. 

Moral: 

Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.  Don’t judge life by one
difficult season.  Persevere through the difficult patches and better times
are sure to come.

Live Simply.  Love Generously.  Care Deeply.  Speak Kindly. 

Happiness keeps You Sweet, Trials keep You Strong, Sorrows keep You Human, Failures keep You Humble.

Lets Love each other instead of “Chaos and Riots”.    Let bygones be bygones.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Prayers appreciated

I haven’t been feeling well for the past several days and haven’t hardly made it online. It is nothing serious and no cause for worry or anything like that. I have been fighting a simple chest cold for it must be a month now. Different times, it seems to have run its course and be clearing up only to suddenly reappear. We have all had the same, chest feels raw, it hurts to breath, sore throat……. breathing becomes a little more difficult. When I look at the overall big picture when I think that a chest cold as annoying and uncomfortable as it may be is my only complaint, my life is obviously pretty good.

I am very lucky to have Vi here with me. She is a very smart women. How smart is she you may ask? She is so smart she realizes: She may catch a cold or what ever one week and she carries on business as normal. It may slow her down, but not really she just carries on. Now this is where the smart part comes in. I catch the same cold or flu whatever, a few days later. She realizes that “OBVIOUSLY” my cold or what ever is of a much more severe variety, which is the reason why I whine, complain and lay around like a big lump. Huh, I wonder, maybe is that just the male part of me coming out.

I have a prayer request, please. My cousin Mike is in very critical condition in a Calgary hospital. The last update I have heard is, he has under gone 2 emergency open heart surgeries. I understand he required a patch to be placed on the wall of his heart as it had deteriorated and was bleeding internally. Follow up surgery was required to repair the patch which was still leaking. I am awaiting further updates. I ask for prayers please!!!!

Thursday was a truly wonderful day. Vi and I both felt truly blessed to be able to spend the afternoon and evening with some excellent company. My cousin Carol, her husband Garry and cousin Marge stopped in for a visit. Carol and Garry all the way from Swan River and Marge from just out side of Winnipeg. The visit alone would have qualified to make my day but there is more. The ladies put their heads together and came with food. Now you just know I am going to love that. The meal they brought and we all shared was wonderful. Ladies, we both thank you so much.

Now, I do credit the ladies with the wonderful food, but Garry still managed to get himself elevated to hero status in my eyes. To any family out there, yes, I said hero status. For the past several days I had been struggling with a picture on a previous post. The picture was there but it wouldn’t enlarge when clicked on as all the others would do. I had done everything I could think of and had become frustrated with the whole thing. Then along came Garry, a few quick clicks of the mouse and the problem was solved. Thank you. Garry, you will hold the title of being my hero forever. OR, until I see someone else doing something nice, which ever comes first.lol

I want to recognize and thank, someone that I see as a hero of life. A few days ago when I was fighting with that same picture I published an appeal for help from anyone that might be able to help me out. I did receive a response from “Roads”. He took the time to write out detailed instructions for me. I thank you.

I paid a quick visit to his site and was very touched by what I read. In his blog, “the price of love” which is now on my blogroll. He is sharing his thoughts and feelings as a husband as his wife is battling cancer. Roads, I thank you for sharing as you are.

Wow, when I haven’t been online in a few days I have a lot to talk about. I have added a new page “other beliefs on death”. I am not sure if this page will do anything or accomplish anything. It is my thought or my hope, that if we all get together collectively as people and share our individual, thoughts, fears and worries. possibly based on our individual faiths or cultures. We can all benefit at the end of the day by really seeing and realizing we really are all in the same boat and that people are people and nothing else matters. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – More family

I am still basking in that warm fuzzy comfortable feeling that I wrote on yesterday. Acts of kindness can produce such a wonderful feeling. I wrote of a very very nice thing done for us by our children and posted pictures of all. Hey, I have a right to show them off and brag.

I have written often of what a high tech computer guy I am NOT. Rob and kids, sorry about your picture, I am not sure why it will not enlarge when clicked on. I used 3 different pictures same result. I even carried my text over to an entirely new posting and re-uploaded the pictures, same result. I just don’t understand it, can anyone offer me any suggestions on what I am doing wrong?

While I am feeling all warm and fuzzy about family, something very important has occurred to me. I have shared pictures of my “Canadian” brothers, Eric and Robin. I have never shared pictures of my “South African” brother and sister. Physically, many miles may separate us, but that certainly doesn’t separate them from my heart. Now I suppose technically the term half brother and half sister would apply, but I don’t do anything in half way measures.

I give you my brother Bryan, sister-in-law Vicki, niece Sandy and her (at the time) new husband Wade. My nephew Barry and my sister Anita are missing from the picture but I will get one of them up soon. I will be writing more about them all soon.

I am such a lucky man to have the family I do, I know it and I appreciate it. It is one thing to be blessed by wonderful people or wonderful things in your life. It is an entirely different thing to recognize and appreciate them for the true blessings they are.

Here we go with another “Bill” statistic, nah, I will just say many. I am sure there are many of us,right at this moment that do have blessings in their lives but are so wrapped up in the issue of the moment we forget to recognize and appreciate all that we do have. Actually, I am sure it applies to everyone at certain times or points in their lives, well me anyway.

For me anyway, I think it works like this. This could apply Vi, my daughters, my family so, so many people in my life. I will try to explain what I mean. Say, I meet someone, this could be a future spouse, a new coworker, anyone really and I am blown away by how wonderfully kind and special they are. Time goes by and as I get to know them more and more they can often loose that special glow they once held for me.

Now it is true, when you first meet someone, anyone generally they have on their, what I call “party manners”, being out to make a good impression. As you get to know them better and they become more comfortable with you, those “party manners” fall by the wayside and the true them comes out and may not be quite the same person.

But, I have to question myself is that always the case? How many times is it that my perception of them is what has actually changed? Could it be the same wonderful characteristics I saw and so admired initially are still there. As we get to know people, their wonderful characteristics become the norm, what we expect of that person. With time somehow wonderful can seemingly be down graded to the norm, in our minds. They didn’t change, my perception of them did. How sad is that, wonderful characteristics suddenly are no longer recognized as such and become our normal expectations of this person. They themselves haven’t changed, it is our perception that has changed. What, we once recognized as true blessing in our life have been down graded to become just a normal expectation.

All of our lives are filled with so many blessing, It is just they are no longer recognized for what they really are. How often is it that it is only after we have lost something do we really realize what an unrecognized blessing it was, when we had it.

So often we don’t realize the blessing until it is gone, but at the same time we often don’t realize what we are missing out on until our blessing arrives.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Family

Ever have one of those really feel good days. Now I am not talking physically feeling good days. I am talking emotionally, spiritually and everything else that goes with it. A day where you just have that warm fuzzy feeling inside and suddenly everything about the world seems wonderful. Vi and I were blessed with one of those days, yesterday. We both got this wonderful feeling collectively from our kids.

As I am sitting here I have realized something. In the past I have written of how Vi and I are both divorced and each have children from these previous marriages. By the time Vi and I got together all the children were already grown and away from home. So neither of us had any sort of a role in raising or parenting the others children. I am not sure, maybe this is why we refer to the children as hers or mine and visa versa.

Hers, mine or ours who cares. I am so happy and proud of all of them. Lynelle, Vi’s daughter called yesterday with a surprise for Vi. All are concerned with either of us doing to much physical work around the house. Vi had her surgery last week and is doing very well and her physical activities must be limited. Lynelle, dealt with that issue for us. She contacted all of the children, both sides and they are collectively getting us a maid service. How nice is that.

It was yesterday that Lynelle told Vi about it. Vi, being Vi tried to stop this, but Lynelle persisted and told her basically it was happening. Seeing Vi’s reaction to all of this was as precious to me as it is to be actually getting the maid service. Vi had one of those happy mushy-gushy cries. All she could say was, “I feel so loved, so appreciated. I am so happy.” It was so obvious this kind gesture touched her heart deeply. So touching to see, I really thank you just for that alone.

Being a male, naturally I reacted a little differently. Not so differently on the inside, my heart was touched deeply, by this so thoughtful and kind act. On the outside my reaction was more, yippee, “I don’t have to clean the bathroom.”

I am not sure what words to use to describe my feelings. I mean would we have survived without this kindness, of course we would have. Are our lives made a little easier by this loving kind gesture, absolutely. It is a situation where it could have so easily just been blown off as, they will get by, and we would have. But, a loving act of kindness by 6 wonderful children has definitely made out lives easier. We are both so proud of you all and love you all, thank you.

OK, I want to show off this wonderful bunch of kids we share. I could write pages and pages shouting out the virtues of each and will be doing that in the future. I am a real tech-idiot and such a time getting the pictures up, in doing this, I somehow managed to lose my entire original post written and have now redone it. So, for now, I introduce you all to my family, our children.

Bill’s Daughter Billie with husband Rob

Bill’s Daughter Shauna with husband Jake.

Vi’s son Rob with his children, Arielle, Stefan and Great granny Nellie.

Vi’s son Dave, wife Kelly and sons, Dawson and Carter.

Vi’s son Michael with great granny Nellie

Vi with daughter Lynelle. Hey Jason sorry, I couldn’t find a picture with you all in it. One with you and Seth will follow.

Am I a lucky guy or what???

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – I’m male – thats my excuse

This morning I had what I think is truly a “guy moment”. Hey I am a guy so I can talk about guy moments which aren’t always the brightest.  We do tend to sometimes get a little confused, in my case a little more often than most.

Use you imagination and picture this. It is about 3:00 in the morning. I am sound asleep naturally wearing my sleep apnea mask and Vi suddenly shakes me to wake me up. Our conversation went something like this:

After shaking me awake, Vi says: “did you hear that?”

Me: “huhhh”

Vi: “I heard something, like a loud bang or a crash or something.”

I am not sure if it was a throw back to our days in Norway House and the home invasion or just my male attitude showing through. But, I really do think I may have set speed records at least records for me. I was up in a flash and running from room to room with one though dominating my mind, “let me get my hands on you, you (#@*&) intruders.” I checked the main floor and was on my way down the basement, when maybe my brain started to wake up. I realized I had forgotten my trusty baseball bat, which I keep at bedside for just such occasions. “Ah, I don’t need it anyway, just let me get my hands on this little punk.” As I am checking out the basement (which was fine) my brain wakes up one more level and I realized, Vi said she heard a bang. But from where, here in the house or out on the street, where? I hadn’t even asked from where or what kind of bang or anything. I had a very small bit of information and was off and running, with what I knew. When I took the time to get the whole story, it had sounded to her like it came from the street in front of the house. I couldn’t see or hear anything out there so it was back to bed.

It makes me wonder how many times have I in the past only gotten part of the facts before I “knew” what needed to be done. How many times did I not stop to think there are at least 2 sides to every story. How many times did I act or speak without knowing all. How many people was I unfair to or maybe even hurt, because in my mind I “knew” the answer. An answer arrived at with only possibly a small part of the story. Really makes me think and wonder.
Would anyone care to share their experiences such as this?

I have a wonderful family story to share. As usual, I am having issues uploading pictures, I hope to share this later today.