It's good to have a reality check every once and a while...when something happens and it makes you realize how lucky and blessed you are. It also makes you realize...that you never know how long you're going to be alive and how much time you really have to live your life the way you should...but mostly it makes you consider your relationships (particularly the bad ones) with others... The lady next door to me, Mel, is basically about to die. She just found out last month. She was fine...and now she spends the last month of her life in the hospital...it seems, waiting to die. It's not fair at all, she is one of the most wonderful, kind, generous people I have ever met. She is remarried and had a 14 year old daughter, Brandy. As bad as I feel for her, I feel almost worse for Brandy...who is about to lose her mother and move away from everything she knows. But all this has really made me consider my own life and current situations. What if I were in Brandy or Mel's situation? What if something happens to me or you? Is this how you want it in the end? We have so much and are so much more lucky than so many others, but this is how we are chosing to spend (for some of us, the last) our year. I think it's important to end things and to forgive. I think sometimes our stupid pride gets in the way too much. The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. Just consider this...and evaluate some things.In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I'm not keeping tabs on anyone...but recently I've worked some things out...and forgiven...and it's wonderful. I I want things to be right. Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. | 
