I had a different plan for what I was going to write this morning.  Then I started thinking about my friends and family who are no longer with us. The pain will always be there. Is it odd to find comfort in the pain? It is how I remember them.

I went to see my niece in a play the other day. It breaks my heart to see her and her brother because they look SO much like their dad who passed away.

My friend Jeff who just lost his mother asked, “How do you continue on when the person who built your heart is gone?”  

There are no simple answers. Life is comedy and tragedy. The minute you are born you spend the rest of your time on earth either living or dying. I believe in the Butterfly Effect. Your parents gave you more than life. They taught you lessons. Your job was to continue and teach those around you.  As a parent there are three things that I wanted to teach my children. The “3 R’s” 

• Respect
• Reliability
• Resilience. 

We want our children to respect others and to be respected.

We want our children to be reliable. To be that person that others turn to and can count on.

We want our children to be resilient. To bounce back. I want my children to be a super ball. As children we remember the awe, how can this little ball store so much energy to bounce so high? 

That is what I want from my children and, my friends, that is what your parents would want from you.  Today, tomorrow, this month. BOUNCE. Bounce so high you touch the stars. Bounce so high others look at you in awe and wonder, “how can someone store so much energy they can go so high?”

That is the most important lesson. That lesson, I hope, will give you hope and hope to those around you.

I love you both and hope that you can bounce.

What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from the horizon,
And someone at my side says, “She is gone!” Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “She is gone”,
There are others who are watching her coming,
And other voices take up a glad shout,
“There she comes” – and that is dying.