I Got Poked in the Eye

Sometimes when you're caught looking through the peep hole, you get poked in the eye.

Today, I got poked pretty hard.

I've made the decision in my life to approach the world through love and peace. Grant it, some days I am better at it than others, but for the most part I've decided to work within my own mind to make the conscious choice to see the goodness in everything and everyone around me.

Today, when I tripped over what seemed to be a huge rock and started to slip from my path of becoming a better person; I got pummeled by a rock slide of boulders that made the huge rock I tripped over seem like an insignificant pebble.

Okay, yet again let me get personal…

I was bumming because my youngest son didn't make the tournament team for baseball. Yeah, okay I said it—I am a bit competitive. So what if there were 32 other kids trying out for 12 spots; I felt he did pretty darn good and thought he had a shot in making the team. You can imagine my shock when his name didn't appear under the title of U8 Tournament Team. I was really getting into the self-created pity party I was having because he didn't make the team. Yeah, I felt pissed at first, then hurt, all the same crap we all feel when we are let down.

I was sitting in my room trying to let go of the icky feeling of jealousy, frustration and all around crappiness; (Hey at least I decided to work on it) when my mother came in and told me a friend of mine Glenda (name changed for privacy) was at the front door. I sat up. That's right; I told Glenda the other day that I would help her with a wound she has on her back.

I followed her to her house as she ambled across her yard and into her front door. I made the comfortable small talk that connected us between the weeks we didn't see each other. How she was feeling; what my boys have been up to; all the key points that tended to keep us abreast to changes in each other's lives.

She led me to her modest kitchen and I waited as she prepared her bandages and medicinal ointments. When she was ready I removed her bandage. It was a small wound on her back no bigger than the circumference of the eraser on the end of a number 2 pencil. I didn't think much of it, I dabbed it with hydrogen peroxide and told her what I saw. She gooped antibiotic ointment on the bandage and I pressed it delicately against the wound she will never see.

After she pulled her tank-top back over her shoulder I ask what happened. I anticipated the vague answers she always gave to a "kid" like me; but in my wildest thoughts I never expected the betraying word cancer to cross her lips. When she said malignant my heart shattered into tiny pieces and plummeted into pit of my stomach.

She told me she's been dealing with it for two years. That her first lesion was removed at UCSF and this last lesion was removed by a doctor closer to home. She looked so delicate, as she braved the words; they didn't get it all this last time. She continued telling me how she didn't think the doctor was very caring this last time and how caring the doctors at UCSF were. The reason she hasn't gone back to UCSF was because she didn't have anyone to take her. I told her to call USCF and that no matter what I was going to take her there.

There she stood, hopeful tears swelling in her worn eyes, because someone said they cared enough to be there for her. There I was capable of giving her something that was as simple as a ride to change her life.

Events occur in your life that wakes you up to your "dumb-ass, self-centered, what the hell was I thinking" moments.

Today I was reminded that my insignificant hiccups are curable with unconditional love and the discovery of your authenticity.

The fastest way to peace is to live peacefully and the quickest way to love is to love unconditionally.

I believe, as most of you know, that thoughts carry power. I ask you now, after reading this post, to take a moment and send love to Glenda. Know that your words and thoughts can change the world one moment at a time. Thank you for sticking around to read.