Choose to be like someone you admire. I admired my father, for loving us unconditionally, especially when we didn't deserve it, when we needed it most. I wanted to be like him ~ tough but never kicking anyone when they were down ~ living life without much fuss but with a sense of humor; but he also quietly helped people along the way, and I secretly admired that the most. I could spend the rest of my life trying to be like he was for one day. He was honest, brave, faithful, strong, very funny, tough yet kind-hearted, and absolutely brilliant ~ and modest about it all. For years, he silently worked his magic behind the scenes. People loved to be around him. He was a man of character. "Character is what you do when no one is looking." It's not bought, it's not for sale. It's grown.

Making mistakes in your life is human. But growing into the person you admire is divine. Instead of living with mistakes and faults, letting blame and festered emotions uselessly divide-and-conquer everyone from the inside out, use all your strength to pull yourself through, letting go so you can grow past them into the person you want to be. Try it just once, and you'll see that you aren't the victim anymore. Things will be so clear that you can see every leaf on a tree and wonder how you never saw them before.

I will always admire my mother, too. She took care of my father every day she knew him, and she sang to him in the hospital and held his hands. She looked out for his happiness and safety like a growling mother bear, always. That's how much she loved him and fought for him against the toughest odds. She took care of his health, his happiness and his heart. "Y'mama takes good care of me," he told me so himself once with his sincerest expression, grey-blue eyes fixed wide with no-doubt, although I already knew it all. And she never thought twice about stepping up to take care of those sick, at her job and in her family, starting with her mother and father and eventually trickling all the way down to each of us in the house.

That takes a real edge of strength and courage, to help with the healing process of people and especially if not healing them, then to usher them to a place of true peace and happiness. Sitting with her in the hospital with my dad that last time, I know now I wouldn't give anything for being there. It felt like someone flung a door wide open, when time and mere existence whipped past me, zipping through me all at once, like a pressurized plane cabin at 40, 000 feet high; and it was enough just to hold on, trying to hug together what would be the flying shrapnel of my living world crushing, imploding, and tearing apart right in front of me ~ but at that exact moment, a whole new beautiful something settled down just long enough for me to recognize it as it jumped through the open door before us all. I saw that one thing clearly with my own eyes that I'd always wondered yet believed ~ things that you can't see do exist. Good things, graceful things. Strength, love, and courage together. And here in front of me, I had two of the strongest people that I've ever known existing in strength, love, and courage, right in front of my very eyes.

I knew: If I could be like them both, combined, it would be a true honor. And it would take the rest of my life trying. So, it will. Knowing that nothing in this world will ever hurt me as much or heal me with time as the passing over of someone I truly love and respect is a mind-boggling truism of life. No one is perfect, but you should die trying to be close to happiness in the face of anything, and for everyone. So I try, every moment now ~ one quiet step, misstep, and another strong step at a time.