Some overdue thank-yous to a few special people

April 7, 2015
Day 342

I'd be remiss if I didn't send out a special note of thanks to a few special people who have blessed my life (and Andy's) through some very simple acts of kindness.  This blog entry seems short, but I promise you it is overflowing with gratitude!

To Andy's friend Phil and my friend Tom: thank you for introducing us to XY Magazine, whose online personals section brought Andy and me together.

To Keaton, thank you for introducing me to Deviant Art.  That site has helped me grow as an artist, and find a community of people who I call my own.

And to Bob Z, thank you for introducing me to the writing of Hugh Howey.  A simple book recommendation on Facebook pointed me to the world of self-publishing, which opened my life in some pretty amazing ways. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH to each and every one of you for your small but powerful acts of kindness!

Forever Grateful

November 25, 2014
Day 209

I was going through some old notebooks last night, something I do randomly now and then, and came across a passage I'd like to share here today.  I wrote it in November of 2004.

     "As Thanksgiving approaches, my thoughts turn to gratitude.  It's an often-talked-about but still much neglected emotion.  Say 'thank you', our parents taught us.  And a thank you we would say until the day came when we didn't need to be told any more.  But gratitude lives on a deeper plain.  It resides in our emotions in a very real place that knows when we have been given something we didn't necessarily deserve to be given.

     "We may expect a present on our birthday or on Christmas.  We may expect a tissue when we sneeze or a postcard from a friend on vacation, but do we deserve these things?  Do we deserve the many nice things we receive in our lives? 

     "Gratitude is the sincere 'thank you' from the heart that we really mean, the appreciation for an act or a kind deed, or for kind words that did not have to be done or said, no matter how much we have come to expect them."

As we approach Thanksgiving, now just two days away, let's start thinking and praying on gratitude right now.  Let's reflect not just on all the stuff we own and the blessings we have, but on the in-between moments too.  Gratitude is not just a reaction, an expected emotion in return for a kindness, but a proactive choice of genuine appreciation.  It neither requires nor deserves a kindness or blessing to come first.  It's simply grateful...for everything.

Thank you

November 11, 2014
Day 195

I don't know what our armed officers here and around the world go through, nor do I fully want to know.  The horrors some people have witnessed or experienced themselves are simply unimaginable.

So for Veterans' Day, I can't say, I understand, or even I can only imagine, because I can't.  I can't even imagine. 

All I can say for sure is thank you.  Thank you for your service, thank you for your time, and thank you for choosing to do this incredible thing with the one life you were given to live.  Thank you.  A million times over, I thank you.  Only you and your brothers and sisters in the armed forces understand some of what you've been through, and at the end of the day, only you know exactly what you yourself have experienced, both physically and mentally.

Thank you for doing whatever you did to protect the lives of my fellow Americans, and for the citizens of countries around the world.  Thank you for everything you chose to do, and even everything you might have reluctantly done, for the cause of good people everywhere.

Thank you.

I ran like a dirty rat

The view from my company's building was very similar to this one.
Photo taken in 2000 from The Empire State Building.
© All Rights Reserved by chid1528

September 11, 2014
Day 134

Every year on this day, we tell our stories, and each of us has one.  We share where we were that day, what we saw, and what we did.

My 9/11 story has many parts, but the element I'd like to reflect on today is the one where I ceased to be a human being, and instead took on all the characteristics of a dirty rat in the street.

When the first plane hit the twin towers, it seemed like an awful accident of some sort.  When the second plane hit as I watched out my window at work, people immediately started saying this was terrorism.  I balked.  "Don't say that!" I chided.  I was so upset that my coworkers were jumping to such conclusions.  "Maybe a news helicopter got too close, and that's the explosion we saw," I said.  But then we heard about the other planes.  Washington D.C. was under attack too, and at least one other plane was still out there.

Soon afterward, we were told our building, because it was connected to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, was a potential target.  Evacuation was not ordered outright, because no one seemed to know what we should do, but I decided to leave right away. 

I ran down 29 flights of stairs.

I ran toward the river, and away from midtown.

I ran uptown from 42nd Street to the 70s or 80s. 

I needed to get as far away from danger as I possibly could, and I needed to do so as quickly as my legs would take me.

MEANWHILE, all over the tri-state area, many others were doing the complete opposite.  They were running toward the towers, and toward the danger.  They were making every possible effort to get as close to the areas in danger as possible, to save lives, and prevent more lives from being lost.

The heroes that day were many.  They showed a spirit and an energy I can only admire from a distance.  Because me?  I was a rat.  I ran like a dirty rat as far away as I could, because I was so scared my life was in danger from just a possible threat I didn't even know existed.

Do I forgive myself?  Yes, just as I understand all others who did the same thing or similar that day.  But I live with the knowledge of my reaction, and I live with the direction in which I chose to run.

For all the heroes who gave their lives that day, or who ran down there to help as many people as they could, I will praise and thank you all until the day I die.  And on the day I die, I hope to meet those heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice.  I want to thank them, and hug them, and give them all my appreciation for their choices that day. 

They ran and they ran, and then they ran some more.

They ran from all over the tri-state area, on foot and by car, by boat and by train. 

They ran toward the danger, into peril, and into the flames and debris.

They saw the threat, but they ran toward it anyway. 

And so we all pause today to thank them once again, as we will next year on this day, and every year after, and every day in between too.  We thank them for the choices they made, and the sacrifice they knew they were making...for complete strangers.  We thank them for running forward for all of us.

In memory of Andrea Della Bella and Officer Paul Talty