Angels Here On Earth

Today is one of those days. One of those days when you realize, just how old you are. I mean, I don't walk around every day saying, wow, I'm 47 years old. But today, I know I am. It has crossed my mind several times.

I don't have any particular aches and pains. None that I don't have most everyday anyway. I know every day when I get out of bed, that I have a back. I know I have nerves gone bad in my feet, the very first step I take. Sign of the times. All of it.

Several of my girlfriends are struggling. Struggling with health issues of gigantic proportions. I "talk" to them most everyday. Making funnies and conversation for distraction. Hoping that it helps. Rolling out Prayer Trains for those who need one. Asking any and all to get on board.

Last I heard, these years were supposed to be our years of reckoning. Our kids are just about grown and independent. We're not tied down to anything but a work schedule. Some of us, not even that. Yet here we are, struggling to feel good. Some of us, struggling to simply stay alive. Sound dramatic? Over the top? It's not. It's real, for several girls that I have the honor of knowing personally.  It's far too real.

But nothing keeps them down. Their attitudes are so positive it makes one plain ashamed to whine about something as simple as sore feet and an aching back.

I have one friend struggling to get past the Chemo that has strapped her to a hospital bed for the better part of six months now. Only to get home, and somehow, fracture a rib, from the constant vomiting that comes with the treatments, as well as a cough from the bronchial infection she got along the way. And she still has 12 weeks of radiation to endure that will begin in the next month or so. And through all of that, for the past six months, it did not stop her from attending her daughter's college graduation, or from worrying about all of her other friends and their lives.

One friend just survived a double mastectomy.  Who will still have another surgery or two to go before it's done. And whose only goal, is to be able to function enough, to leave the house, and be in Andersonville on July 9th, to celebrate the life of her oldest son who was killed last summer in Afghanistan.

One friend who has suffered from Lupus most of her life. Yet, she struggles to maintain the day to day life everyone else enjoys without thought.  She goes into hiding when she needs to let her body "heal" and comes back out when she can.

One friend whose body has fought against her need for wellness on and off for the past few years. She's in the hospital now, trying to find out, what is causing her pain. Yet she is still worrying and thinking of everyone else in her life, as she always does.

One friend who suffered a horrendous childhood, only to suffer re-occurances of the damage into adulthood. But who is so strong, and willing to do, whatever it takes, to overcome the need and desire to come undone within herself. She will overcome and she will survive and she WILL break the chain of weakness.  Because hers is a story of success, not failure. A story of unquestionable love, not emotions of love in disguise.

One friend whose child has a taken a road of destruction. But she will remain strong, and help him the only way she knows how. Sometimes the most unpopular way of helping...with tough love and private tears. It's what he needs most. Not sympathy...but strength. He must see clear, bright and loving eyes in the daylight. We can hide our tears alone in the dark. And she will.

Age can make you susceptible to injury, pain and sickness. You never seem to think about it any of that, until it darkens your door, or the door of someone you care about. 

There is a plan for each of us. Someone else holds the blueprints to those plans. I don't sit in a pew every week. And I have to admit, until the last year or so, I didn't pray much at all. Now, I have a hard time remembering when my knees didn't hit the floor every day.

Was the plan for me, to see through all of you, what I have been missing? Was the plan for me, to see through all of you, what's important in life? Was the plan for me, to see through all of you, how empty my life has truly been? Or was the plan for me, to finally understand, through all of you, that we are all one. That the people we meet through our lives should stay in our lives. There's a reason why they come into our pathway. There was a reason thirty years ago and a reason now.

Throughout the day today, as the course of events have taken place, I have been overwhelmed with worry and love. Forced by association, to realize how precious life is, and remember to never take it for granted.

The strength with which each of my friends has pushed forward is astounding. The positiveness they maintain is shaming to the mere mortal. But are they just people, or are they those special ones we make reference to as Angels here on Earth. I have heard that saying all of my life. Maybe these special people were put here on this earth to show us. To lead us.  I am so proud to know all of these people. What a humbleness they have unconsciously bred among us all.

May God be with them through the rest of their struggles and victory's. Amen.