I hope you were all able to spend some quality time with your mom this past Sunday. It is a time to show gratitude, appreciation and love for the woman that cares the most for you. This is possibly the last Mother’s Day I will experience. My mom is 90 years old. Physically, she is doing very well for a woman her age and I think she easily has two or three more years left in her, but we all know that it will be the Almighty Father that will determine who stays and who goes and when. But when my mom says, “I’m ready to go”. The will to live can have an enormous impact on the Almighty’s timing process.
Desire is the start of all things. Whether you are a student athlete, starting up a business, wanting to lose weight, or if you have goals in any facet of your life, wanting it is the start. The strength of your desire can also lead to tremendous success even if you have shortcomings in other areas. How many times have you seen a sporting event and the weaker player or team won, not because they were lucky or executed the fundamentals better, they won because they wanted it more.
After desire, a positive attitude can go a long way. There is something to be said about biofeedback. Your positive thoughts constantly going through your mind overcomes the physical illness. Simply put, it is mind over matter. If you keep sending negative thoughts to your body, it will respond in kind. If you keep saying to yourself, I am sick; I am not well; I feel terrible, the body will respond to those thoughts. Conversely if you say I am healthy; I am well, I feel fine, the body will respond positively to those thoughts too.
To put it bluntly, my mother has a subtle death wish. She says constantly that she is ready to go. She says that this is her last year. How do you respond to that? She is a devout Catholic and I can only use that to combat the negativity by saying that is your not your call to make. It is only God’s call, and he would not want to see you taking the easy way out.
My father died sixteen years ago, and my mother misses him very much. It is the loneliness that makes it unbearable. Her hearing is diminished and she has short term memory issues. She lost the zest for life, and she is ready to meet her maker.
The will to live is an individual thing. I hope I can partake in my passions for as long as I can. I love to write, look at stock charts and play poker. If I found myself in a situation where I could not do any of those things, then I might lose the will to live too.
My mom says she is ready to go. If so, this is potentially my last Mother’s Day. Naturally, I do not want to think like that, but if the Almighty says it’s time, then so be it. I will not the dwell on the negative but remember the positive moments in years gone by where I showed my gratitude, appreciation and love for my mom. Happy Mother’s Day mom and let the Almighty determine if this is the last one or if we have more to come.