Wonderful day at the @braves new park with my daughter and friend!!! (The girls were pulling for the Mets 😀) Nice memorial to Hank Aaron inside and the statue of Niekro outside. I remember watching him play with my dad. He was a big fan! It was a...
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Wonderful day at the @braves new park with my daughter and friend!!! (The girls were pulling for the Mets 😀) Nice memorial to Hank Aaron inside and the statue of Niekro outside. I remember watching him play with my dad. He was a big fan! It was a great day for us all!!! Happy Father’s Day!!! ⚾️🌞 (at SunTrust Park)

Friend for a Day

Today is my birthday. I was born just after midnight just missing having an Independence Day birth. This is a blessing. No one really wants a birthday on a holiday. One day, at least, should be yours with no divided attention or distractions. This never happens of course. Personally, I choose to have birthday weeks. You take the pressure off the one day, and you can be more relaxed savoring the experience. Well, that’s the plan anyway, and if it fails, you can just eat a week’s worth of cake and ice cream.

On the other hand, having your birthday near a holiday has its benefits. Some years I don’t feel like celebrating. I let the day go by unnoticed. My parents and grandparents are gone. My brother and sister live five hours away. And my friend, Will, who happens to have the same birthday as me no longer lives close. So, I keep quiet and hide behind the 4th letting my day slip right past. I don’t mind really because July is one of my favorite months. It’s what I call the good part of summer. I feel alive and oddly reflective.

Traditionally, January is supposed to be the month for reflection. Not for me so much. I tend to take stock in July. Maybe its just my birth month or maybe it’s the halfway point in the year, which makes it a good time to stop and say, “what do I want to do with the rest of it.” July is when time slows down for me, and I feel connected to myself more completely. I’m more self-aware. I look at the changes and sense what I’m feeling in my life. This year I’ve been thinking about new friends.

As you get older, it’s supposed to be harder to make new friends. Perhaps it’s true. Maybe it’s your definition of what you think a friend is or is supposed to be becomes more restrictive. Maybe we just don’t make time for them like we used to. As you get older, you have increased obligations and more compartmentalized lives. It’s harder to do. We separate people into work, play, hobbies, and we don’t let them mix. With that said, I know people who define friends more simply. An acquaintance or their kind neighbor or an old high school chum. What defines a friend really. The person you can call at 2:00 am and they won’t get angry. Is it your best friend since elementary school or your old college roommate.

My friends have always been temporal. My college roommate was my best friend for three years. Three years later we had all but lost touch. This transitory nature of friendship is not necessarily a bad thing. Friends come and go for various reasons. Sometimes the short shared experience is all you both need at the time. I used to wonder what happened to the longsuffering friend. That true best friend. Is it just part of being a man. In Indian culture, men are raised to be much more open and expressive with their friends. So, maybe, it’s just in American culture. Maybe it has nothing to do with that at all. Perhaps it’s me. Honestly, I was never the greatest of friends. Not in how I cared, but my attentiveness. I always had my mind on other things. I didn’t always appreciate what I had or what someone meant to me at the time.

When I look back at the the key moments in my life and see who was there with me, I am quite amazed. People who I didn’t think of as friends, per se, were doing friendly things. Helping, encouraging, offering kindness. Sometimes my friends weren’t really friends like I remember. One of my favorite friendships lasted a summer, and one even lasted a month. I was always a little frustrated at the fleeting nature of friendship. It took me a while to realize you can’t always hold on to people. You just have to embrace the moment and appreciate it for what it is while it is happening. If you don’t, you will miss the deeper meaning.

Friendships are organic and ever-changing. They are defined, for better or worse, by what your time together means to each of you. It could last a day. One friendship can flow into another. You can build several new ones from a small act of kindness. The true beauty is to recognize it when you see it and to treat it with openness and love. To do this, you have to be courageous and vulnerable. By simply saying the things you would like to say sooner rather than later, you can create more lasting meaning in both your lives. It’s why you say, “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “I’ll miss you”, “I love you”, “I was thinking of you” and “You are special to me” every chance you get. You don’t even have to know why someone says it to you. People can affect you just with their presence, since of calm or strength. Maybe the way they live their lives inspires you or maybe they were kind to you when you needed them to be. What they mean to you and you to them is each your own story. The important thing is to let them know they matter to you, to let them know “I’m glad you are here.”

Thank you to all my old friends and to all my new ones! I’m striving to be better everyday. And, I don’t want to miss a thing.

A New Day

During the Civil War, the lose of life was so great that communities began gathering to commemorate those who had died. A hundred years later, Memorial Day had become an American holiday and included the fallen in all wars. Today, it is the unofficial beginning of summer. School is out. Families take their first vacation. They have barbeques with family and friends or make a quick run to the coast for a long weekend.

As holidays go, it’s rather mild. Not like Veterans Day, which has parades, speeches and flag folding ceremonies. These activities engage and challenge us to be involved and to participate. Memorial Day is not like that. It lends itself to quiet reflection and solemnity. Each person is allowed to remember at their own pace and in their own way.

Over the years, I have always enjoyed the time off. All of my family members who served came home after their war. My friends who served are either still serving or are civilians now. No one close to me has died while in service. So, in truth, I have no personal connection to this day, per se. My feelings have always been more toward the general humanity this day represents. While I have great respect for it, I have had no forethought of my mindset changing. That is, until about a week ago.

My friend, Wu, began telling me a story. Wu is one of the kindest and most gentle persons I know. Whenever I visit with her, my heart is made better for it. On this day, though, Wu shared with me something completely unexpected. She started by mentioning that this coming weekend was a special holiday. I agreed with her, but thought it peculiar at first because it’s an American holiday, and she is Chinese. Then I thought better of it. Each country has experienced its own lose, and a day remembering that is a good thing.

Wu grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. She was sent to the countryside to work and denied education. She was told what to believe and what to think. Nevertheless, her parents knew education was important, and they found a way to send her to school. When the opportunity came to continue her education abroad, they encouraged her to go, and she did. Wu went on to earn her PhD and moved to the states with her husband.

At the time, however, her young son had to stay in China with her parents. It was only temporary, until they could establish themselves in their new life in this new ¨beautiful country.¨ The couple themselves lived apart for several years. It took some doing, but the time came when they all could be together in the same city. And they were, Mother, Father and Son. The three of them had five wonderful years with each other until tragedy befell them. Wu’s son died in a car accident on his way to basketball practice.

This was her story. Her journey to this moment in time. I was overcome by many emotions and my heart broke. In doing so, something changed. They way I saw things changed. Wu has lived in America for many years. She is Chinese but fully integrated into the fabric of American life. She knows our history because it is now hers. Memorial Day is hers. She knows of Lee and Grant and the Civil War. She understands why we remember, and she fuses that with her own story of struggle, sacrifice and lose. She harks back a hundred and fifty-seven years ago to the men and women who decided to join together to honor those who were dying too soon.

So today, I have a very different perspective on the true meaning of Memorial Day. It is a vigil honoring those who have gone before us. It is a day to remember my mom, my dad and my grandparents. It is a time to remember my friend’s son who died of cancer at age twelve. It is a time to remember Wu’s son who was only sixteen. It is a time to remember all the sons and daughters lost to wartime.

It is also a time to offer up a silent prayer for the living and to be thankful for our own lives. May we live them with love and compassion.

Let your light shine brightly!

Happy Memorial Day!

msnbc:

How one artist transforms trash into tiny houses for the homeless

Designer Greg Kloehn uses refrigerator shelves, a van’s back door and even a xylophone to create mobile houses for those sleeping on Bay Area streets. His efforts have resulted in hundreds of people now volunteering to help build the homes.

“What really compelled me to keep going is just the impact that I saw that it had on the people that I gave them too. They were calling it a home; they were decorating the homes,” he says. 

Watch more here: http://on.msnbc.com/1poHm5H

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Source: on.msnbc.com