A Different Kind of Color

Kelly,

Please know that all of here at FASO just love your daughter and that she, and all of your family, are in our thoughts.

Kelly… the honesty with which you write is both inspiring and heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing not just the facts of Aiden’s challenge but also your inner response because that’s where life is lived. When we share that with ourselves and others, we open up to the nature of being human and you help me see myself (as a human and parent) in a new way.

You have a tough cookie in Aiden. Like you, she is smart, strong but at the same time willing to be vulnerable. She has everything she needs to make her way through this because she has you, Tom and Liam.

I miss you, darlin.

Hi Kelly, This may be dismissed as semantics, but I think this little shift can make such a difference. And the shift is… Work verses fight.
What are we working for verses what are we fighting for?
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m easily riled and have a tendency myself to frame my struggle(s) in terms of warring. However, it struck me that the analogy falls apart right about the time that I have a setback if I consider that I haven’t lost. I can only lose when I stop working toward my goal(s). In a fight, you either win or lose. In work, you either finish the job or still have work to do. In work, if you haven’t obtained your goal(s), you can continue to pursue. Pursuit is the hopeful act of obtaining your desire(s). Fighting somehow doesn’t have that positive momentum. Fighting makes it sound like someone is going to get hurt and it very well could be me. Fighting will only stave the inevitable agony of death for such a short amount of time while pursuit fills what time we have with joys and triumphs that nurture not only ourselves, but those around us too.
Work is what you do. You are always up to the task at hand and you inspire others because your approach is always about solutions and not about fighting. You are such a positive person and though the struggle can be daunting at times, the momentum and genius that you bring to the table give short shrift to most impediments!