A Gift of Life

Today is April Fools’ Day, but my blog is not a joke. April 1 also begins National Organ Donor Awareness Month. How fitting when all of nature comes to life in the spring, that we think about giving the gift of life. A butterfly has been chosen as a symbol to represent that life-giving opportunity. The statistics are staggering and change minute by minute. There are approximately 113,000 people on the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list. While 75 people each day receive a transplant, around 19 people die each day because of the organ shortage. 

Depending on the type of transplant, over 50-75% of recipients survive more than five years. My sister, Audrey, and I received our liver transplants almost fifteen years ago next month, and I have a friend getting close to a twenty-five year survival rate. 

Since the focus of my blog is on discarding the stereotypes of senior adults, here are some interesting statistics for seniors:

·        According to the 2005 National Survey of Organ and Tissue Donation Attitudes and Behaviors, conducted by The Gallup Organization, roughly 20 percent of people over the age of 65 mistakenly think they are too old to donate an organ, while nearly 12 percent believe they are too old to receive one.

·         Your age doesn’t make you ineligible to sign up; nor do you have to be in perfect health. Each person’s ability to donate is determined at the time of his or her death. People of all ages — in their 50s, 60s, even into their 80s and older — can sign up to be donors. And people over 50 can be eligible to receive transplants as well.

·         According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, as of January 2010, there are 47,734 people between the ages of 50 and 64 and 17,689 people over the age of 65 on the national waiting list.

·         More than 94 million individuals in the U.S. are 50 years of age and older. Imagine how many more lives could be saved if the majority of people in this age group signed up to be organ donors.

Donate Life America is the official site to register as an organ, eye, or tissue donor.  Here is a link to their website: www.donatelife.net

I will always be thankful for a family, who in the midst of their grief over the loss of their daughter, made the decision to make life possible for me and four other people. One of my favorite sayings about transplantation is: “Don’t take your organs to heaven; heaven knows we need them here.” 

The Well Spoken Word

For the past three years, I have been dealing with the written word as I have put my story into book format. Now I am having more and more opportunities to verbally tell people my story and about God's amazing gift of second chances. The challenge is to condense my story as written in Born Three Times-A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love into a twenty minute segment. Two radio interviews-one local and one out-of-state have been arranged through my publicity contacts. On March 23, I will speak at a local church senior adult gathering about my book. This next week, I will be training to become a speaker for Christian Women’s Connection meetings. In my younger years, I did more public speaking, but I have become a little rusty and a lot more nervous when I stand in front of a crowd. However, I am excited about the possibilities as I share my story with new acquaintances.

Charles doesn’t want to be left behind and is anxious to get his story down on paper as well. He recently purchased Dragon Speech Recognition Software. He will speak his childhood escapades and military adventures into the microphone and his words will magically be converted to written words on his computer. Then I will tweak and massage his memories into paragraphs, chapters, and finally into book format.

These new adventures will keep our late bloomer years blooming and busy. W.M. Lewis is quoted as saying “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” Sometimes it takes much trial and error, as well as prayer, to find out what we should be doing with the time we have left on this earth. King David in Psalms 19:14 penned the following thought which is my prayer as well: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

If Winter Comes

Our area was experiencing weeks of rain—not what I sometimes call “liquid sunshine”—but the raw, cold kind that seeps into bones and affects attitudes. The groundhog hadn’t seen his shadow, but I was very skeptical about his prognostication of an early spring. Since I had errands to do, I couldn’t hibernate. Water from an eighteen wheeler sprayed onto my car windshield, and I slammed on my brakes muttering as the truck took a sharp right turn into a local nursery. Emblazoned on its side panel was a brilliant picture of Encore Azaleas—one of my favorite flowers and the inspiration in May 2012 of my first blog article “Life’s Encore.” The colorful azaleas painted on the truck reminded me that winter rains are necessary before spring can emerge and beautiful flowers bloom.

One of the advantages of being a senior adult is that you can develop perspective on your life. You can look back and recognize challenges you’ve experienced and how they were resolved. Some of the most significant events in my life occurred after bleak and long winters of my discontent. (“Now is the winter of our Discontent”-William Shakespeare, Richard III, 1594.) 

It was March 1965 when I first experienced deliverance from a winter of chronic depression and found joy and peace when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. My long, lonely winters of widowhood ended in March 1996 when I met and soon married my late bloomer husband, Charles. It was a beautiful spring day two years later when I received the call to go to Emory University hospital for my liver transplant. My eighteen year long winter of failing health soon became a spring of restored life.

Every year I gladly lose an hour of sleep when we change to Daylight Savings Time. Even though I suffer through the sneezing season and an abundance of southern pollen, spring remains my favorite time of year. The poet, Percy Shelley, said it best in Ode to the West Wind:  “If winter comes, can spring be far behind.”

All the nitty-gritty details of the winters, springs, and other seasons of my life are chronicled in my memoir, Born Three Times-A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love. Thank you to all of you who have read it and encouraged me with your positive comments. For those who still want to order an eBook or soft cover edition, click on the “How to Order” link above.

The Island of Romance

Valentine’s Day is over but lest we forget, I decided to write a blog post about our recent trip to Santa Catalina, California—The Island of Romance. Most of you will probably remember that catchy song from 1958 written and sung by the musical group known as the Four Preps. “26 miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a-waitin for me … the island of romance, romance.”  It was a top ten hit when I was a teenager and some place I hoped to visit one day. Over fifty years later, I finally got to go.

Charles and I boarded a high speed catamaran in Newport Beach for the hour long journey across the sea. The island was shrouded in fog and mist and appeared very mysterious as we approached. After docking, we boarded a bus to tour the island. The sign said, “This bus will take sharp turns, and the roads are very bumpy.” I survived the choppy waters of the Pacific by eating ginger chews for motion sickness, so I swallowed another one as we headed out. Now I had to conquer my fear of heights. Our destination was the “Airport in the Sky.” In his early flying career, Charles had landed a single-engine plane on that small landing strip 3,000 feet above sea level on top of Catalina Island. It couldn’t have been any more death defying than the journey to get there by bus. The quaint city of Avalon disappeared from view as we began our ascent. Around one hair pin turn after another, I hung on to Charles for dear life as we climbed higher and higher. I guess I thought if we plunged off the cliffs we would go together. Now wasn’t that a romantic thought?

A breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean was visible after every turn. An hour later we reached the Airport in the Sky. It was good to get my legs back on solid ground. People who had flown in were eating $100 hamburgers in the small café. That’s a pilot’s joke about how much aviation fuel it takes to fly somewhere for lunch. After a photo shoot, we headed back down to Avalon, and my idea of a romantic time. We found lots of interesting shops and a Mediterranean café with delicious sandwiches and pastries.

I am so very thankful that we both still have the health and ability to share new adventures. I am humbled that God enables me to reclaim the years of my life that I lost to liver disease and allows me to experience some of the desires of my heart. The Bible verse in Lamentations 3:22-23 expresses my feelings. “His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”

 

Tweet, Link, Pin, Like

Albert Einstein once said: “The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.” He was a brilliant man who was never satisfied with the scientific status quo. His original thinking enabled him to discover the Theory of Relativity. 

For some reason, his quote strikes a chord with me. It challenges me to step out of my comfort zone and ask myself some questions. What is my present way of thinking–stick with the status quo, don’t rock the boat, remain in my comfort zone. What should be my new way of thinking–challenge the status quo, shake things up, stay open to new ideas. The first way of thinking is very comfortable and the second quite scary. 

A recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution lifestyle section, tells about a retirement community that is teaching its 80 and 90 year old residents how to use computers. A 71 year old man teaches the students how to use email and Google for information. A group of retirees called the “Geezer Squad” provides in-between class support. I predict those folks will remain mentally sharp for a long time to come. 

For me, becoming proficient with Social Media requires a whole new way of thinking. I much prefer talking with folks or writing letters and emails. But I have to think differently to learn the social media language, connect with family and friends, and increase my visibility as an author and blogger. I’ve become familiar enough with Facebook to read and “Like.” I recently joined LinkedIn and several writing groups that I am navigating by trial and error. I have several requests to “Tweet” and join Twitter, so that it next on my list. To “Pin” or not to “Pin” is another issue to resolve. When am I going to have time to write?

We can’t be an influence on the younger generation unless we learn to speak their language, and dare I say, “Like” their music – at least some of it!!  Jesus challenged his followers to think in a new way and not be bound by the legalism of the past. For all of us, a new way of thinking is the key to a happier life.    

Questions and Answers

This past week Pauline Phillips died. You probably knew her as Dear Abby. She died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 94. She was the most widely syndicated newspaper columnist in the world. For over 60 years she dispensed answers to people’s most perplexing questions about marriage, children, and jobs. Every question she posted was given a well thought out answer, often times telling people to look within themselves to change instead of expecting the situation to change. She was still “blooming” into her 80’s and sounds like my kind of woman. Her life could be summed up by the following Swedish toast that she liked to quote: “Fear less; hope more. Eat less; chew more. Talk less; say more. Hate less; love more."

This quote speaks to me as a writer. In the art of writing, emphasis is constantly placed on saying more with fewer words and eliminating unnecessary words in all sizes of manuscripts. In other words, don’t be “wordy.” Everything I write can usually be pared down by one-third. The discipline of staying in the allotted word count is a real challenge.

I recently participated in a radio interview about my book, Born Three Times. I was given fifteen minutes to answer questions about my story and I wanted to make every word count. I sweated bullets trying to figure out what the interviewer would ask me. I listened to other interviews done in the same format and heard other writers droning on about what they had written. A fear of doing the same thing motivated me to action. With pen in hand, I came up with six questions that I thought I would be asked and wrote out my answers to those questions. My goal was to “talk less and say more.” There were a few “ums and aahs” when I was surprised by a question I didn’t anticipate. My interview was aired on Toginet.com, an online radio station that posts interviews with new authors. Now I am allowed to use it for my personal use to promote my book. You can hear for yourself how well I did.

To find my interview, click on the Radio Interview tab at the top of this post. Click the black button to start the audio. Thank you for listening and feel free to comment with your thoughts.

Take if Off -- Put it On

Two people that I admire and whose counsel I seek gave me some good advice recently. My doctor advised me “to taste, but not eat” and my pastor spoke to my heart when he told me “what to wear in the New Year.” If I want to continue “blooming” during 2013, I need to follow their wise words.

An unknown author once said, “People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.” 

OK, the holidays are over and it is time for me to get with the program. I’ve spent way too much time this past year, sitting at my computer, writing my book, and munching along the way. I never knew that writing is fattening. My memoir, Born Three Times, is published and now I have to get moving to undo the weight gain. My doctor’s advice doesn’t eliminate any food group (I like that part), but is all about portion control—in other words Self-Discipline which is a challenge for me. I have three months to get some weight off and my blood pressure back to normal. It’s a good thing I like lots of veggies and feathers and fins—chicken and fish. I need all the encouragement and support I can get, so please comment below if you are willing to join me in streamlining your body during 2013. 

New Year’s resolutions can be overwhelming, so how about thinking of a daily resolution? I recently found a quote by Henry Moore that speaks to me. He said, “I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's.” My pastor put flesh on that quote during last Sunday’s sermon. His message was from Colossians 3:12-14. 

            “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

It seems overwhelming to clothe myself with those seven virtues, unless I put them on one by one. Seven virtues—Seven days; one virtue each day that I can pray for. I can do that!

Sunday – compassion

Monday – kindness

Tuesday – humility

Wednesday – gentleness

Thursday – patience

Friday – forgiveness

Saturday - love 

My goal is to be the person God wants me to be in 2013. In order to do that, I need to care for both my physical and spiritual health. Consider joining me in this venture.

My book Born Three Times-A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love is available to purchase from several different sources. Please see the How to Order tab at the top of my blog for more information.