Lessons Learned...

There are many sayings and cliches about appreciating the living while they are still here. One being giving flowers to the living while they can still smell them. Often I've taken these statements as just that..statements, but it's not until you lose someone that you truly take them to heart. I lost my older brother just over a month ago on June 18th. I often replay the phone call that I received from my mother with this horrible news. The days to come were filled with many questions and mixed emotions. I'm sure that I will continue with these thoughts and feelings for a while, but there is one that sticks out. One of these is guilt. Father's Day was a few days before his death. I remember that the thought to call him crossed my mind, but for some reason and I don't remember why, I didn't. This is one of those moments in my life that I deeply regret. That would have been my last chance to hear his voice or hear him say "Kelly Ball, what's going on?". Now I struggle to pinpoint the last time I spoke to him. It's not that we weren't close, I've just been 'living life'. Sidebar: One of my biggest agitations since his death have been comments like 'oh, I didn't know you had a brother, you didn't talk about him'...hmm, just because you don't remember me mentioning him does that mean that it's not supposed to hurt as bad. I don't speak about my parents on a daily basis, but I do have them..ok, maybe that's not a fair comparison but I think you understand my point..Back to what I was saying...My manager on my current project lost her grandmother a few days ago. This has really touched me. I guess one reason is because she really allowed me to 'cry on her shoulder' when I found out about Maurice. Another reason is because we had a conversation about appreciating the living because 'you just never know' not too long ago.

I've learned my lesson about appreciating the living the hard way, but the lesson has been learned. Now, I try to immediately take some sort of action whenever someone crosses my mind, because you just never know.....

RIP Maurice, I miss you sooo much.

Many, many thanks go to the people who in some way really helped me through this time..Visa, RW, LMc..I love you for it.