Clouds

"I want everyone to know:

You don't have to find out you're dying

to start living."

~Zach Sobiech

Today the world is a little worse off, for today Zach passed away. For those who don't know Zack was 14 when he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer he spent years having treatments and surgeries trying to prolong the inevitable, but last May at the age of 17 doctors told him there were no more effective treatments left. It is how he dealt with that news that has inspired me.

 "You know most people live kind of in the middle, in between 'all your dreams come true' and 'you're dying,' and it's a very comfortable place to live. I'm living on the two extreme ends, so you have really, really good days and you have really, really bad days." Those were the words of a 17 year old who knew his days were numbered, and yet chose to make sure that he crammed as much happiness as he could into each moment that he was allowed to be here. He turned to music as a way to live on after his death, he wrote the song "Clouds" as a way to say goodbye, if you haven't seen it yet do yourself a favor and go watch it his words are much more powerful than mine.

He chose to be happy despite the tragic events of his life. How many of us would have done the same? How many of us would have instead cursed God, or fate, or luck? How many of us would have stayed in that dark and lonely hole that Zach found himself in at the beginning of his last journey? Zach was able to climb up, up, up, he somehow found his way through all the pain, and the tears and found his way to the clouds. He found his way but he didn't do it alone. He had help, friends, family, complete strangers on the internet helped him on this journey. So tonight as I sit here and feel the loss of a man I never met, I will let his spirit know that I am a better person because he was on this earth. To those who find themselves in that dark and lonely hole I ask that you let me know. I will bring the rope and help you climb up.

You don't have to find out you're dying to start living... Thank you Zach.

Troy

Love thy enemy

"The practice of forgiveness is our most important

contribution to the healing of the world"

~Marianne Williamson

 

Today's post may be controversial to some, but I felt it was a risk I was willing to take, for this story truly moved me.

 

Paul Douglas Keane is my newest hero. A 68 year old retired school teacher who I have never met has restored my faith in humanity in a time when I desperately needed it. This man has come forward and offered to donate one of his burial plots to the family of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. For three weeks the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has yet to be buried, as Worchester funeral director Peter Stefan has been unsuccessfully searching for a cemetery that will accept the body. Paul Keane has no connection to the Tsarnaev family, in fact two of his friends were standing within 50 feet from the bomb when it went off. He is not trying to minimize the horror and grief of the victims of the terrorist attack, he simply feels that Christianity should put its money where its mouth is. Paul Keane has stepped up and offered his plot with one condition, that he does it in the memory of his mother who taught Sunday school for forty years and taught him to love thine enemy. "Love thy enemy. That's what my mother would have done and that's what I'm doing," Keane said. "Christianity is supposed to be the religion of forgiveness. Well, lets start here."

 

Love thy enemy... what a concept. What a way to live your life. What would the world be like if we could take a page from Mr. Keane's philosophy. I think it would be a much better world. To look past the anger and grief we feel, to look past the horrible acts that others commit against us, and forgive them. To simply let go, let go of hate, of fear, of anger, to let go and grab hold. Grab hold of forgiveness, grab hold of love, grab hold of hope. For when we do this, when we turn the other cheek, when we find it within ourselves to forgive others and offer to help them...That is what I would truly call Godly. I don't know if I would have the courage to do what Mr. Keane did, to face the backlash that his act of generosity will cause him, to face the scorn, the ridicule, and the hate that others are already sending his way. This man faces all of this with three simple words taught to him by his mother, Love Thy Enemy.

 

Mr. Keane, we have never met, and we probably never will, but I want you to know that your gesture has inspired me. You have made me see the best in people, and made me see the person I want to be. Someone who does what he knows is right no matter what others may think or say. So to you I say thank you. Thank you for showing me that it doesn't matter what other people do to you, it is instead what you do for others that truly matters.

 

Troy