Somethings Never Change

The more things change in my life, the more I see them the same. I am often faced with the similar challenges, whether it is having to make hard choices or learning to have more patience. Life always seems to challenge you in ways that make you grow or just makes you mad. 

Most people will never go through having to deal with the death of a child, who was in the hospital as much as or more, than he was at home. This experience has changed me, for the better I would say. I have seen now that, family is what matters. I often have to remind myself that it is OK to just enjoy your family. 

It would have been easy for me to turn to work to deal with my loss. I could just work and spend little time at home. This would have helped my career and been a much easier path, but I would have missed out on a lot of good times. My family is what I want now more than anything. I just want to be with them. It is not always fun times, but everyday I am reminded this is right where I belong.

Today on Facebook I saw a quote that I just loved. "Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn't make a decision" (unknown) Wow, powerful right, one thing we learned early in Weston's life was that making decision, no matter how hard, was an important thing to do. When dealing with a child that is sick you have to choose, no one else can, sure doctor can help but you must choose.

The other day our youngest (18 months) started drawing on the walls. Everyone else had just stopped drawing on the wall. This artwork on the walls used to make me mad, I would have to clean it and if it was bad enough I would have to paint the walls again. This time was different, I just could not seem to get that worked up about it. As a matter of fact I almost thought it was funny. It seems only fitting that our last would follow in the footsteps of the rest of the kids and give us great pieces of art. 

Work was such a focus of mine for years. All I could think of was to work, to make money for me and the family. My first year at one job I worked over 600 hours of overtime. That was from April-December, when did I have time for the family. That is over 25% of an average year, most people work around 2000 hours a year. I missed out on quite a bit that year, in the kids lives. Last year I had less than 150 hour of overtime, and most of that was not by choice. Can you see the change.

My goal now is to be a better person everyday. Everyday I work on it, some days are better than others. I still get angry when I should not, I still have to be careful when overtime is available. It is so easy to fall back into our old ways, but I challenge you to take the road less traveled. Do not go quietly into that night. Make bold choices and be patience with the ones you love. Also Hang on, Hang in, Don't quit.

AK