Monthly Archives: November 2011

{LOVE} Everyone Wants It

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A very dear friend of my proclaimed this morning that she is giving up on love. She said this after subjecting herself to an evening of sappy movies. No good comes from a single girl watching sappy movies. Had I known she was doing such an act I would have stopped her and told her to watch something funny. However her giving up on love made me think.

Think about the time I proclaimed that I was giving up on love. So many of us are single and for most of us it is not by choice. This is just how we ended up. Some of us are so driven by our careers that we can’t fit in or let alone think about another person. Or maybe you’re a single parent with a one track mind and push your needs a side for the success of your child. Either way we are the only obstacles that stand in the way of ourselves finding love. Love is out there.

It’s out there all right. We dream of it, long for it, and search the ends of the earth until we find it. Sometimes love falls into our lap, bellies up to the bar, or even ends up in our in box. The moment you give up on love you lose hope. Hope is what keeps us a float during the hard times and allows us to dance our pants off during the good times. Hope is what allows our hearts to burst wide open. When your heart burst then you my dear have the ability to give and receive love.

So this is for the singles out there. I know it sucks cooking for one, sleeping alone, and always answering the “Why are you single” question. Have hope that one day the “Why are you single” question will fall to the floor because the one you waited for is by your side. Hope that you will be a plus one, that you will be able to buy those cool dinners for two in a bag, and have someone to snuggle on cold nights. Mr or Miss Right is out there, in time you will find what you’re looking for. Be patient and enjoy the single life. Because one day you’ll look back and realize that being single wasn’t so bad.

{Hearts} On 22 ~ Thanks Giving Edition

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The other day I asked my Father: “What are you thankful for?” He looked at me with his teary blue eyes and said “YOU! I am thankful that you are alive. I am thankful that I have my daughter standing next to me and not in a tiny urn I can hold in my hand.” Thats when it hit me, all to often Fathers are losing their daughters to Pulmonary embolism, strokes, and heart disease.

I am thankful to be raised by such a wonderful man and have parents that support my crazy life. They never gave me the option to give up or back down. The day I was lying in the ICU my Mama told me “You can cry about this for 5 minutes and then you’re done feeling sorry for yourself. Ok?” We cried for 5 minutes and then I put my big girl pants on and fought back. Fought for the life that I wanted to lead and I became a thriving survivor. Giving up was never an option. However giving back was.

Over the past two years I have received an out pouring of support from my beautiful friends, family, the American Heart Association, Stop the Clot, and countless others. They cheered me on when I wanted to give up. They kept giving me info, web links, and books so I could live a heart healthy life style. They are the reason I am thriving. An I am forever in debt to all of these wonderful people. Thankful that they believed in me and believed that I would see a better day. Thank you for never giving up on me.

So I pledge…

To not just survive – but thrive. I will learn how to live stronger and longer – for me, my family, and my community. I will join the movement, take action to improve my health and to share information with others to help prevent and overcome stroke.

Please remember that as you sit down at your table full of family and friends…..remember that at someone’s table there is an empty chair that was once filled by their daughter. My heart goes out to the family with an empty chair at their table this Thanks Giving. It is because of you I advocate and educate the public on the #1 killer in America. One day there will be no empty chairs at the Thanks Giving table. There will only be full chairs with Healthy Hearts gathering to give thanks.

Leave Your Comforts At The Door

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In life we become comfortable and forget what it feels like to be out-of-place. We have a routine and get use to how things are. Forgetting what things could be and how open the world is. Closing ourselves off to opportunity and fearing the tides of change.

Change can be scary as it rolls in and when it recedes we realize how beautiful it is. Boxes try to hold us in and its lines provide us with comfort. A calm that is routine and as long as you’re standing inside the world is ok. Then there are those of us who punch through the box and stand outside the lines. Out here its scary, the safety net of the line is long gone, and only you can change the room your standing in.

The question is do you leave your comforts at the door and say goodbye to the box. Or do you stand inside clinging to any remaining shred of routine as the bright lights expose your secret. Your secret is, YOUR afraid of the unknown, afraid of walking without a net, and mostly afraid to leave the box behind.

Remembering Dr. Delahunty

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Some of us can go our whole lives without being saved. I on the other hand can say my life has been saved three separate times. My faith is strong and my zest for life is even stronger. I have a life because one man believed in me and wanted to make my life better.

That man was Dr. John Delahunty. A man I am forever in debt to. This afternoon my father gave me the news that John had passed. I did my best to hold back the tears as I walked through the skyway. Holding it in until I got to the Prius and then it hit me; it hit me that he was really gone. If it weren’t for Dr. Delahunty you would never have met me and my light would have been extinguished at 3.

My Mom was sick of the answers she was getting from our normal doctor. He would tell her “Oh AJ has the flu. Maybe you fed her bad food. Oh its allergies.” Remedies were tried but nothing worked and I just kept getting worse. I remember the day my Mom took me into see Delahunty. I hadn’t drunk anything in days, I was too weak to stand on my own, and I would scream if you touched me. I at 3 was one hell of a hot mess. She scooped my screaming 3 year old self up, grabbed radar, and put me in the truck. He was her last hope. A Mother knows when her child is dying.

Dying was not an option. Dr. Delahunty took one look at me and instantly knew something wasn’t right. The secret lied with in the X-Rays, CT Scans, and Ultra Sounds. The secret was that I was born with an upside down bladder and a messed up kidney system. He didn’t know how to fix me. John promised my mom that he would make me better and that he was going to do his best to give me a life. A few phone calls later and we were headed to Minneapolis for surgery. The plan was to reconstruct my bladder and kidney system. What I wasn’t born with the surgeons built and I was put back together just like humpty dumpty.

Dr. Delahuanty wasn’t just a doctor. He was a healer and he believed in the power of healing. John really listened to his patients and dug until he got an answer. He would call me squirrel, always the Squirrel. Never AmandaJean, AJ, or Mannie, it was always Squirrel. John promised me that I would live a normal life and that I would grow old. He made good on his promise. Its 25 years later and I am still standing. In return I promised him that I would change the world and I am doing my best to do so.

I got the chance to tell him thank you. Thank you for taking the time to figure me out but mostly thank you for saving my life. On the day of his retirement he fought back tears at our last appointment, he couldn’t put pen to paper to write out my prescriptions. He just looked at me and said “Squirrel you and me we have been through the mill together. Yes we have. Promise me that you will stay in touch and let me know when you change the world.” I made good on that promise sending emails, letters, and cards letting him know that I was doing all right. Letting him know that I was forever in debt to him.

John Delahuanty believed in me and because of him I have enjoyed one hell of a life. He taught me to reach for the stars and gave me the strength to dream. He gave me life. The greatest gift of all……Life. I will miss getting letters and emails from John, yet he will always be with me. For as long as I share our story, our life saving story. His memory will live on through me, his family, and the hundreds of lives he touched.

{Alucious} Sophia’s Big Cousin In Heaven

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People have been asking me “How are you doing with your Sister’s pregnancy? Your parents must be so happy.” In reality it hurts. Every day I go out into the world I am reminded that my son is in heaven. That for some reason God chose him to sit upon the clouds. My family has become a flutter of baby prep, traveler bobs, cribs, clothes, and baby all day every day. My parents do their best to walk on egg shells and try not to mention Sophia’s arrival.

Egg shells are not needed. This was Gods plan and the hand I have to play. Sometimes I wonder what would Alucious be like. He would be walking by now and I wonder what his laugh would sound like. Would he have blue eyes and curly hair like me, or would he look like his father. Yea, the father that walked away when he died. The ex-husband blames our divorce on Alucious. That his death created a wedge. The wedge was all ready there, he just helped me kick it out-of-the-way.

At the time Alucious died I did not see any good in the situation. I only saw anger, failure, and pain. Failure because God didn’t have faith in me to see Alucious through. In truth I had faith in God but not in myself. I had to learn to look beyond the gray and have faith in the light. All good things come in time. A few months after his death I was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer and now I am cancer free. The cancer took every last shred of hope I had for a child, as the Doctors rendered me infertile. Cancer sucks, but not being able to have a child sucks even more.

Then again when another door is forced shut a window can be pried open. Angela has given me her word that she will place a baby in my arms. One day I will meet a man who understands that 1. My son died, 2. I can’t have kids, but hey Angela can, and 3. Its your sperm and not my egg. Alucious deserves to have a brother or sister on earth. For now I am settling for a muppet like dog.

We will do everything we can to let Sophia know about her big cousin in heaven. She we lay beneath his mobile, the turtles dancing over head, and in her a dream will be realized. My sister JammieLeigh is going to share Sophia with me and I will be the best Aunt possible. I have a feeling that she will be calling me to get her our of trouble and to trick her Mom into giving her ice cream for dinner. Sophia is a gift, a beautiful life, and she will have an angle on her shoulder. As I am sure Alucious will spend his days playing with her in the breeze, stomping in the puddles, and rolling in the dirt.

Alucious lays beneath the Birch tree. So perfect, so beautiful, and at peace in this place of wonder. I face the sun and in its warmth I know he’s here and his life was not in vain. My son would want me to be put together and happy. I owe it to him to live the best life possible and to create something beautiful out of his memory. Alucious Gregory may not of graced this earth but for a moment, yet his tiny life has made me a Mama to a baby in Heaven. An I am greatful to be his mom down here on earth, while he plays on the clouds of heaven.