The Little Things in Life...
For this blog post I want to focus on something we all take for granted at times and challenge everyone to join me in taking a deep breath to look at our lives from a 10,000 ft. view. All too often we get caught up in the daily grind of life, social media, school, sports, etc… and forget to be thankful for the time we have with our family. As Lifetime Imaging approaches our one year anniversary, I began to think more about the events and people this venture has brought into my life as well as my family’s life. There have been and will be more wonderful experiences in the year ahead but one specific event really sticks out because it involved my family and cousin (who helped me work the booth, thank you again!). The Indy Family Fest.
Indy Family Fest took place this past October and all of the planning and hours leading up to the big day were full of long days, stressful deadlines and bad weather (day of) that ultimately led to a fun and exciting event. My youngest son, Evan, was able to go to Fox 59 the morning that Indy Family Fest was being promoted live on television. This was one morning Evan and I will never forget. It made me smile ear to ear watching him get his face painted, playing inside the Hoosier Game Truck as well as interacting with the awesome, lifelike, ninja turtles and Fox 59 news crew. The pure joy that you could see on Evan’s face was touching and I am so humbled that we could have such a wonderful mother-son bonding moment. Evan even made it on television and while he didn’t initially act as though it was a big deal, to me it was. We recorded the segment and it was so fun to go back home and watch it with the family. My oldest son Owen thought we now had someone “famous” living in our home and asked if Evan now had fans!! Too funny!
While this moment may be small in retrospect, it did remind me that we often get wrapped up in everyday activities and forget to stop and take a breath and realize all the important things in life. I am just as guilty as the next person with this, but am trying to make a better effort to spend as much one on one time with my children as I can. I know, that is a lot easier said than done but on this Veteran’s Day, I find myself reading posts of family members whose loved ones are deployed and can’t see their family. Again, putting my life in perspective. I think it’s important to both the child as well as the parents to have that quality time together as much as possible because as soon as they “grow up” we will be begging for some one on one time. I know work schedules make this hard at times, however taking the time, maybe once a month, will be beneficial for everyone. Everyone has always told me “time flies” and statement is oh so true. The older I get, of course I will never be older than 32, the more I am seeing this right in front of my eyes. Let’s set aside some time to find a moment(s) where we don’t think about work or other struggles that we might be dealing with so that we may look around at the wonderful life and moments before those fade into the distance forever.
As I finish writing the last sentence, it brought forth an event that took place this year. My husband had a friend, Joe Clark, die from colon cancer and his wife Amanda, my husband has known since 5th grade and a true inspiration to all, went from wife to wife and caregiver. She not only stood by his side through the ups and downs, but has continued his memory by running an organization called Cocktails and Chemo. During his time of fighting cancer they posted a series of blogs that will make your face melt with joy, sadness, inspiration and many other adjectives that I can’t write at this moment since I am now starting to tear up. One of those posts has stuck with me and I wanted to share a portion of that with you since it is part of the reason I am trying to make, we all should, a more concerted effort to pay attention to the “little” things.
“I wonder if I just never looked up. Was I just so focused on getting home from work that I never noticed the sunset? Was I too busy doing what was next on my to-do list that I never noticed the clouds? Were my eyes closed this whole time?... I feel it now as I look up at the sky. I stare into the stars hoping for some kind of response back, as if suddenly I’ll see his face in the clouds…We walked up and down the streets behind our house as the sun was setting and the sky danced all around us. “If you get a choice, you should go to those pink and purple clouds,” I told him as we pointed out our favorite shapes in the sky…“I definitely will”, he said. “I’ll sit up on top of them probably the really weird shaped ones like that one too,” he went on as he picked out the strangest ones we could see…”
January 19th, 2015, http://cocktailsandchemo.com/2015/01/19/never-saw-sky/ - Amanda Evans Clark
The little things in life may not be so little in the future so we should all compile as many of them as we can. Take advantage of fun, low cost, events that encourage families to get out and enjoy time with one another. Who knows, maybe you could even stop to look up at the sky and admire it's beauty.
