When I was in my
fifties I was shooting rapids in a downriver canoe with friends
and they were also seniors. And they are still doing it
and of course I'm ill and can't continue with them. And so you're exhilirating
going up, voom, voom,
and it's just a lot of fun. And then afterwards you can body
surf when you get down to the other end.
Life is an adventure. It's not be sat back and be afraid to
move and do anything. It's an adventure. But it's a risk analysis
adventure. You always do it with the knowledge
for your wellbeing. Like I said, you go down the side
of the shoreline and you decide how you're going to shoot these rapids.
You don't just go in blindly and shoot them.
Risk anaylsis. But then, go do it. Go for it.
I call my cancer descendant from the clouds because I missed all the signs prior to
that and I look at it and I'm going, wow.
I did this, I did that. And now I won't be able to do it
so it's a whole new way of
becoming who you are now as opposed to who you were when.
Because you are, especially I'm
ensconsed. I
don't have the energy to do normal daily things.
I have to reinvent myself and
try to have a
meaningful life for the day
that God gives me. And he gave me this day and
what I'm doing here now, sharing with you, is
giving and
giving of myself and giving hope to you that
things will go on. That it's only the body
that stays here. We live on.
Our world is in future
and we have a calendar, we're going to have this meeting next week, next month, next year
and we don't live the day.
And so I'm trying to tell my family, I have this day
so come out and visit me and we'll live the day together.
Live, love and laugh. Successful is the person who
has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
Who had gained the respect of children
who leaves the world better than they found it.
Who never lacked appreciation for earth's beauty. Who never fails
to look for the best in others
while giving the best of themselves. And that was written by
Louis Cohen. I don't know who he is
but I took it to heart. That's how I've tried to live my life.
I'm proud of how my children and
my grandchildren have turned out. You know, they're good
salt of the earth people. They help everybody and everything and that's what I've
always tried to do. And they've taken up the mantle where I left off.
When I've had regrets in any point in my life
I seek counselling, read books, seek whoever I need
to and work it through and get rid of it because I'm not going
to sit around and be a total grouch and miserable
for something that happened and not let it go.
I've go the best
friends in the world that I've had for decades and
they haven't let me down. They are there through thick and thin and this is the
really thin. This is
there are always troubles and things are up
and down and we go through moving and death of friends
and things like that. But when it's you involved, and you're the
statistic and your friends haven't deserted you, you're a
millionaire. Try, try meditation to allay
your fears and
even if you haven't fully succeeded in that, when the time
comes God will allay them or the almighty power will allay
them and people who have previously passed, and they will allay your
fears, they'll say come home. And you'll
see it's a peaceful experience.