Senior Board

This was a big weekend for Matt and his 4-H involvement. He has served as a member of the Senior Northeast Georgia 4-H board of directors over the past year. He was elected to this position by popular vote among his peers at this time last year. This weekend he relinquished his position at a camp wide assembly. This camp wide assembly is a loud media filled event that involves the hundreds of members within the Northeast district that are involved in 4-H. It’s also, as you can see from the picture, a rather formal affair.

During this assembly new board of directors are announced and introduced. Additionally the eight or so current board members are spotlighted in a video presentation with a voice over of the member thanking various people for their help and encouragement over the past year. As each of the current board members video portion comes onto the large screen they can be heard thanking various 4-H officials, friends, co-board members and usually last but not least their parents. As each of them thanks their parents they mention both their mother and father. I listened intently over the roar of hundreds of young people and the background music and wondered how Matt would address the crowd. I wondered what he was thinking when he recorded his portion and wondered if he were thinking about his mother.

Finally it was time for Matt’s video spotlight and onto the huge screen popped one of the baby pictures that I had supplied and Matt’s name in big red letters. We had been asked to supply a number of pictures for this video presentation and I had sent the cutest baby and toddler pictures that I could find. The crowd of children ( the majority of them girls) screamed and clapped as Matt’s picture came onto the screen. Then as the background music faded, I heard Matt’s voice come onto the sound system. I braced myself hoping that he had found a way to express himself and thank his friends and family. The first person he thanked was mom. He simply said, without a quiver in his voice, “Thanks Mom, I know you would be proud”… he went on to thank me and many others but I didn’t hear the rest of it. All I heard was a young man that found courage and the words he needed to confront yet another event that Mom was not here for.

He didn’t even miss a beat and he mentioned Mom and Dad first not last as some had done. His voice didn’t shake and you could tell he was in command of his emotions. The voice over was heartfelt and sincere. I, myself was in such a daze that I would not have known he had finished the voice over had it not been for the crowd of kids cheering and clapping at the end of it.

Yes son, you are right, she was and still would be very, very proud. Just as I am…

March Forward

Sometimes I feel like a recovering drug addict… 

I have written before about how grief is something like an addictive drug.  If you allow it, it can consume you and hold you captive.  It can take control of your life and spiral you down to unknown depths.  It’s quite amazing how controlling it can be of your very existence.

At times, I find myself moving in and out of this addictive state in a seemingly uncontrolled fashion.  One day I’m fine and the next day – POW.  The addictive influence takes another toehold and wants to take control of me again.  That’s how things have been the last week or so.  One day I’m fine and the next day I’m not.

It has changed over the years, however.  It doesn’t feel the same.  It’s more like a dull throb as apposed to a sharp pain.  In fact, so dull that I often don’t recognize it as grief anymore.  To me it’s more like a recurring withdrawal sickness of some sort.  Its strangely familiar but at the same time all new and different.  I’m sure if I looked long enough I would find some guy out there that has put a name to all this and made a fortune diagnosing the issue in folks like myself.

I don’t need a fancy diagnosis however.  I am familiar enough with the drug to know its power and taste.  Call it whatever you wish, put a name to it if you find comfort in that.  I prefer to call it ongoing healing.  Like a scab that comes off a wound from time to time.  Each time the wound is exposed it’s a bit less tender and has healed to a further extent. 

There is a saying “time heals all wounds” –I tend to think that it’s what you do with the time that matters.  Everyone struggles in life, but it’s not what happens to us that matters most.  It’s how we handle what happens to us that matters the most.  Do we choose to become addicted to the grief or do we chose to recover and move forward and make the most of our situation and our life?

Tomorrow is Lisa’s birthday and I choose to remember & recover…

Now I just have to put wheels on that!