My Love, My Wife

It has been a long time since I posted here. My wife's battle with numerous medical issues ended on May 18.

I miss her more than words can say and I always will.

Now, I am left to plan out a new future. Part of that future will be to pursue my Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.

I will be reworking this site to be a place for me to put my writing; I need to get back to the discipline of writing.

What I learned from Colleen

Think about others first, as often as possible.
Colleen was the most generous person I have ever known. Most of you
know this better than I do. In both big ways and little ways she
thought of others first. I know that in some cases she was taken
advantage of by those who should have appreciated her the most.
However, she more often made a new life-long friend.

It is one thing to tell the people you love that you love them, it is
far more meaningful to tell everyone you meet how much you love that
person and how proud of him you are.
Whenever I would meet a friend of Colleen's for the first time, I
would hear about how Colleen was so proud of me. This was true of all
of the staff at the hospital as well.

Hug a cat once a day.
Colleen loved her animals and they gave her comfort. Some days they
gave her a reason to keep fighting as long as she did.

If you are both klutzy you never get mad at the other for what they
drop or break.
When we were first dating I accidentally cleared off the top of the
refrigerator. This meant several glass and ceramic casserole dishes
went flying to the ground. In that destruction she was only worried
about whether or not I was hurt. She understood.

Expect the best out of people and forgive them of their worst; forgive
but never forget.
Colleen's ability to forgive always amazed me.

Never stop learning.
Even while bed ridden Colleen found ways to improve her mind. She
read, played games to keep her mind going, and even took a
correspondence class.

Leave your loved ones with important memories not important things.
All of the gifts Colleen ever gave me pale in comparison to the
memories of the places we went, the laughs we shared, and the love we
had.

Meet Miley

So it has been a while (okay, over a whole year). The biggest change here is we have adopted a dog. She is a shepherd mixed with something. Miley came from the A.R.V.S.S. animal rescue people.

Graduation 2007 - Final Assignment

So you've made it.
YOU have reached the peak!
The last four years flew by
and you sailed through with
flying colors.

Or you didn't.

YOU just barely scraped by.
The last assignment you had to do
was turned in just 30 minutes before
the principal made his final decision on
whether you could walk with your class or not.

And I want you to know that the
valedictorian thing is backwards.
I know that he/she/they worked very hard;
he/she/they deserve praise and accolades.

But for Their benefit it should be the one who
had to fight the hardest, the one who
overcame the most who
should be speaking here today.

Even if you, the hardest worker, could find the
courage to stand in front of this group,
what would you say?

Well, for starters you wouldn't be so obnoxiously perky;
you just finished a marathon and you are tired.
That would be the place to start. Tell us what
you have learned about working hard,
about working through the pain,
about giving up and then getting back up.

This is something that some of the valedictorians
won't have any experience with;
they were blessed with good homes, good brains, and lots of luck.
You could paint a picture for them of what it means to fail
miserably even when you are doing
the best you could do in that moment.

Time for your final assignment:
Prepare and rehearse your story of success
and then never hesitate to share your
secrets to overcoming adversity.

Random Thought

Being an agnostic means that I understand and accept the arguments of atheists which are based on reason, logic, and rationality. However, I also understand that what we know is so small compared to what we don’t know that all of our reasoning, calculating, formulating, experimenting, and theorizing has more in common with religious prophecy than we like to acknowledge.