Pain in the Butt
It’s Sunday, post day, and I’m sitting here in pain. It’s a good pain. The kind that comes after a difficult workout at the gym. I can feel my muscles building as I type. And since Tony and I worked our legs and butt, I don’t want to get up out of this chair. There’s a saying writers use to motivate each other, butt in chair. Now, I have the perfect solution to make that happen easily. Simply spend two hours in the gym doing everything from squats to calf raises. Your butt will be quite happy to stay in the chair. Wait, shouldn’t the saying be butt on chair?
There’s another type of pain I’m feeling…
Before my intense workout yesterday I spent the morning at a celebration of life service for a teacher who passed from cancer. She was young. I met her at Kai’s school while substituting. I watched her continue to teach all through her chemotherapy. I watched her smile and walk through the hallways pretending as if the doctors hadn’t told her she had months to live. Then one day she was gone. I sat at her celebration of life ceremony and listened to her friends share stories of their days together in the classroom. I watched video’s of her dancing in the Nutcracker and dumping spaghetti on an administrators head. I listened to the children sing and play steel drums in her honor. It was a beautiful service and a reminder that life is precious.
I realized that just as I must get through the pain of a difficult workout in order to make my body stronger and healthier. The pain of saying goodbye brings a healthier view of life. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” As Ms. R. told her friends before she passed. The older I get the more aware I am of change. How it can come over time or in a split second.
Trying to convey what I’ve learned to my children.
Kai and I were riding in the car to one of his Steel performances and I don’t remember what we were discussing but I said something about being blessed. He chuckled “Mom, it seems like every conversation we have leads to you saying you’re blessed.” I wanted to scream “Hallelujah!” at the top of my lungs. Kai had been listening… really listening. And sending the message that I’m appreciative of life, thankful for life, was exactly the message I wanted him to receive. Yipee! I answered him by telling him one more time… “Because I am very thankful and I do feel blessed for every day.” Kai, the one with the greatest sense of humor in our family then replied… “By the way mom, that twenty-minute conversation you wanted to have with me – we just had it.” He was referring to my post Mom’s are from Earth and Son’s are from Who Knows Where. He had been watching the clock the whole time. Little stinker. I laughed. Two incredible mother – son moments in one car ride. I was so… blessed.
