WHY ARE WE SO JUDGMENTAL?

I wish I could remember where I read this, but even thought I don't, what I do remember reading from this book was this statement:  most of the conversations we have with one another involve judgments of one kind or another.  This isn't intentional, but it happens, nevertheless.
   It made me think of how especially judgmental we are when it comes to grief.  We think WE know how long others should grieve, for whom they should grieve and how they should grieve.  We even try to compare our losses with one another:  "My aunt died, but her child died," or "My  dad died.  How dare she compare her parents' divorce to that!"
  We MUST stop doing this to those we love!  Every grief is unique to each and every individual.  We have no idea what that person meant to him/her who is grieving, we do not know the in's and out's of their relationship and we certainly don't have the same personality and coping skills as the one who is grieving.  Let's cut everyone a little slack. The next time you begin to judge, either internally or externally, pause, reflect and try to replace "shoot from the hip" judgments with  well thought out statements of tolerance and compassion.

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

"Dream as if you'll live forever.  Live as if you'll die today."  James Dean

TWO AS ONE

"Joy and sorrow are inseparable.....together they come, and when one sits alone with you.....remember that the other is asleep upon your bed."
Kahlil Gibran

RAINBOWS

"The soul would have no rainbow had the eye no tear."  Anonymous

HUMAN TOUCH

"We touch children when they are hurt, we give them hugs and kiss them when they cry, but we don't do it for adults."  Mitch Finley

SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND

Sometimes, when we see older people, well, we don't REALLY see them.  If we're walking behind them, we speed past, fast, because they are holding us up with their slow and unsteady gait.  Or we grumble that they are taking too long to pay for their groceries if they are in front of us in line or any other number of instances.  I had an experience today that just broke my heart, because I witnessed a 95 year old woman (with dementia) being treated so abusively by her grown daughter.  The daughter even said, "People weren't meant to live this long!"  She pushed on her mother's face, as she tried to straighten her mother's leaning posture.  I was appalled!  The saddest part of the whole thing was looking at pictures of the elderly lady when she was young and vibrant.  OMG!!!  She was a stunner!!!  And a poet to boot, with a Ph.D!!  So, my plea here is that when you see an elderly person, male or female, who is only a shadow of his/her former self, please know that, once upon a time, he/she was young, vibrant, beautiful and/or handsome and, most likely, contributed to society in one way or another. A special mention of our vets, who are often cast aside as old men.  We've all seen photos of soldiers in uniform, so young and eager to fight for our freedoms, so proud.  And we were just as proud of them for doing so.  Well, we are now the future generations they were fighting for.  And they?  They are old, hard of hearing, several inches shorter, memories dimmed, health issues galore, but inside, they are still those young soldiers they were so many years ago.  Don't they still deserve the dignity and pride as old men that we gave them when they were young?  Remember this:  the elderly were once young.......and we, if we're lucky, will one day be elderly.

ELIZABETH TAYLOR

I was watching the biography channel the other day, where they had a 2 hour tribute to Elizabeth Taylor.  I had no idea she had suffered so many tragic losses!  She lost so many of her co-stars, with whom she was very close, either tragically or too soon:  Montgomery Clift, Roddy McDowell, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Eddie Fisher and, of course, Richard Burton.  Her third husband, with whom she was madly in love and had had a new baby, died tragically in a plane crash (in which she was invited to go with, but was ill and didn't go).  Then, there was her good friend, Michael Jackson, with whom she felt a kindred spirit, since they were both child stars and weren't able to enjoy normal childhoods.  At one point, she even questioned why she was still here, when so many of the people she had loved, had died.  Interestingly, we were never witness to her grief.  We WERE witness to her prescription drug and alcohol addictions and her many physical ailments, tho, weren't we?  She just had to be dying inside, piece by piece.  I admire her so much more now, for her fighting spirit to keep on keeping on, staying active in mind and spirit, despite the numerous and devastating heartaches she endured.  May she rest in peace.