Well, how did you do? Did you celebrate? Did you wake up in a celebratory mode the following day? I did and it was great. All day long, I celebrated the good things. If a negative thought tried to enter my head, I would not allow it. It was sooooooooooooooo good!
I attended training to be a hospice volunteer three days last week (24 hours). It was fantastic. This training taught me so much more than I ever knew or thought I knew. Hospice was never an area in which I wanted to work. I always said it took a certain group of special people to be able to work anywhere in the hospice arena. If anyone would have told me that I would want to be a hospice volunteer, I would have said they were crazy. Now, I'm sorry I waited so long.
During this training, towards the end of the last day, our guest presenter who works with the bereavement portion of hospice, had each of us do an exercise. She gave us a small envelop which contained twenty strips of paper, four different colors and each color group had five strips of paper to it. She had us indicate on one color, the five most important material things we have or own. Next, we had to, on a different color, list the five most enjoyable things we do. Then, in another group, we listed the five most important people in our lives, followed by the five things we know for sure in life. Then, we had to take three cleansing breaths. The lights were turned down low and she put on a very slow, relaxing CD and played it while she talked with us. We had to close our eyes as she talked and we allowed to open them only when she told us to.
She took us on a journey of life's end for us. In her statements, she told us that we had discovered a lump on our leg, went to the doctor, had it biopsied and were called back to the doctor's office to talik with the doctor. Of course, this was all done in a much slower, methodical fashion than I am describing here. At intervals, she, our presenter, would tell us when we had to open our eyes and make our selection to remove strips we had written on and how many. She never told us the pile from which we had to make an selections; that was strictly up to us, but we had to make selections. During this journey, we were not given a long period of time to think about what we would throw away; we just had to get it done because she was continuing, just like life. Sometimes we would throw out one, two or three pieces of paper. This was beginning to be harder each time. This exercise was to teach us what it is like for someone who has been placed into hospice and their life is getting closer to ending. There were times when I had discussions with myself and was somewhat confused on what to discard because, afterall, she had told us to write down what was important to us and now she was making me discard some of them. The feelings were overwhelming. Some people in the class cried, some did not. But all of us felt the frustration and some of us remembered loved ones who had died and now felt what they must have been feeling.
This exercise taught me to continue celebrating each and every moment I have in life. I am going to reprioritize things in my life. I going to be learning how to let go of some things (and maybe some people) that I should not be holding onto.
I think everyone ought to be able to go through this exercise in a private setting. To do it online on this blog would take away so much of what is needed. However, I believe we can all do some re-thinking about our lives because the day might come when this will not be an exercise from a class but real life.
At the end of this exercise, we all would up with five strips of paper left. I was amazed when I looked down and all those sheets were gone because I had to get rid of some things quickly. I had a lump in my whole body as I looked at them. Then, I moved my eyes to the right and saw the five strips I had left. My strips left were my faith in God and four people who are the most important to me: my sister, my best friend and my two granddaughters. I promise to continue to celebrate having them in my life everyday. I am so grateful that I know a loving God Who takes care of me and loves me unconditionally. I will celebrate my faith in Him daily.
What would you put on your twenty strips of paper? What would you discard, if you had to get rid of one, two or three strips quickly? What or who would you keep? Remember to celebrate that which is precious to you because you never know when it will either not be around or have to be discarded. CELEBRATE!!
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