“April hath put a spirit of
youth in everything.”
—William Shakespeare
No one knows how much
I cried that day.
Memorial: Something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event.
My oldest sister Diana was born in April. Fifteen years ago, at age forty-five, she discovered a small spot on the back of her tongue that she thought was a canker sore. Turned out it was oral cancer.* That one spot tragically took her life. Her death feels like it just happened yesterday.
The month of April represents death and life to me. It always has. The earth is still smarting from winter, dead leaves act like mulch protecting the first blossoms of spring. Death, life.
Diana was beautiful. Fourteen years older than me, she was the epitome of the “cool older sister.” She had huge dimples and long, dirty blonde hair that hung past her waist. She had a beautiful smile that literally lit up a room. She was tough, too! Anyone who knew Diana Lynn McGrath Moon understood that if you messed with her, or someone she loved, then you would surely suffer a tongue-lashing from her (oh, the irony).
Fourteen years is a big age difference when you are seven and your sister is twenty-one and even bigger when you are sixteen and she is in her thirties. She was embarking on marriage, raising kids, and owning a business while I was managing Sweet Sixteen parties, first boyfriends, and basic teenage angst. At the time we had very little in common. Aside from the age distance there was a physical distance as she was living in Texas and I in New York. There were weeks, even months, when we did not speak, living our own very different and age-appropriate lives. It is only when I reached my forties that the age gap finally became moot. Although Diana is gone, I have more in common with her now than I ever did.
It is not lost on me that I am now the exact age she was (forty-seven) when she faced the battle for her life. Sadly, she lost. There are so many things I wish I could have asked her. I’d have questions for her about raising kids and navigating the ups and downs of marriage. As a business owner, I would love to pick her brain about how she managed owning a business all those years ago. I’d especially have questions about gardening! My sister was so incredibly good at gardening, and she used to talk about it all the time. As a teenager, that was about as appealing to me as watching paint dry and I could not even make myself pretend to be interested in it. Yet here I am, now in my forties, and I would kill for that wisdom, that gardening conversation. At the end of Diana’s life, after multiple surgeries and agonizing pain, she was left unable to speak or eat, but she could look out the window at her garden, at the earth where she planted her seeds that grew into lemon bushes, and sprawling hen-and-chickens, and roses—tons of roses. I think the garden provided her with a peaceful and beautiful respite.
When I think of April, I think of life, and of death, and of my sister Diana. I think of her beauty, and I think of her garden. Every year since her passing, I have started a garden. Within a month, my ineptness takes hold along with the weeds, reminding me that if I had my sister to call or text perhaps my garden would be successful.
I take solace in my memories. I honestly chuckle when I think about the quick wittedness of Diana’s tongue; her sarcasm and honest appraisal of a situation would often leave me laughing for days. A beat down from “D” was an awesome thing to watch and a terrible thing to be on the other end of. I miss her infectious Southern twang (which, as a born New Yorker, she always denied having H). I even miss hearing her call me a hated nickname: “Nelly.” Yes, “Nelly” instead of “Kelly” and, yes, she based it on that bratty Nellie Oleson character from Little House on the Prairie. I detested when she called me that, and I threw things at her to make her stop! Right now, as I sit here writing this letter, I would kill to hear her say, “Hey NELLY!” just one more time.
While I believe in heaven, I struggle to grasp what it is exactly. I imagine it’s a continuation of our energy, but maybe heaven is as simple as the memories that others use to keep us alive. They are like handprints on our hearts, which is heaven for me, and when I feel it, I am with Diana and she is with me.
I imagine we all have someone that we miss so much it hurts. I think it’s good to embrace that pain, not to cut it off or stifle it. Your loss is only painful because of the loving relationship you once shared. Stifling that pain would only stifle the amazing memories that are like a slice of heaven. I believe that those whom we have “lost” are really not lost, if there is a place you can go to find them.
For me, it is my garden. Every April I head out, I prepare my soil, and I plant. Even if I end up with a mess of weeds by August, come the next April you can once again find me eagerly sowing, planting, and tilling. It took me about ten years to figure out that I am not planting with the goal of a bountiful harvest (although that would be great). No, I am planting in my garden because it is my piece of heaven, and when I am out there digging in the soil, it is with the hope that I hear Diana’s voice just one more time. Even if it is only in my mind, and even if it is only to hear her say, “Really Nelly? You call that a garden?” 
Reflections
WHOM DO YOU MISS? CAN YOU SEE THEM? CAN YOU HEAR THEM? SIMPLY WRITE DOWN HOW BLESSED YOU ARE TO FEEL THAT HANDPRINT FOREVER ON YOUR HEART. REMIND YOURSELF WHERE YOU CAN FIND THAT ESSENCE OF CLOSENESS, THEN GO THERE.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.
—Elie Wiesel
Indifference: Lack of interest or concern.
The other day, I went for a run. I ran down a street just two blocks from the ocean. Beautiful, right? The sound of the waves, the smell of the ocean—then bam, squish, I stepped right into a pile of dog crap. As I looked down, I noticed not one but multiple piles of (sh)it scattered over the sidewalk adjacent to a crappy—in more than one way—lawn. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the earth.
I had four more miles to run, giving me ample time to reflect on the people who don’t clean up after their dogs. I live in a nice town, not wealthy but nice, and so close to the ocean that the real estate isn’t cheap. So the people who live here pay a fair amount of money for that location, and I would imagine if they chose to live in this town they probably love the ocean. Don’t they know that their dog’s waste will eventually be washed by the rain into the storm drains, which eventually lead to the ocean that they more than likely love to swim in? That their dog’s crap will end up in the seafood that they, their friends, and family might eat? Do they want to eat and swim in their dog’s feces? I wondered about all of this as I ran. I’ve got to believe they don’t! Yet, either they do want to eat and swim in their dog’s poo, or they are ignorant and don’t recognize the consequences—or a worse possibility is that they know and yet they are indifferent to it. They literally don’t give a sh*t (or pick up a sh*t). They don’t care enough to bend down and clean it up! I believe indifference breeds the worst kind of danger to mankind.
With a mile or two left to run, I got to thinking about the subject of indifference. I had recently seen the movie The Hunger Games with my children. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a science fiction movie where kids are chosen by lottery to fight to the death as a televised, publicized sport. Science fiction, right? Yes, absolutely, which is why it made sense when my daughter said, “It was a good movie but hard to believe because in real life, I mean come on, Mom, people would not treat each other the way they did in that movie.” Out of the mouth of babes! You can imagine my daughter’s surprise not two days later when my family watched the Oscar-winning movie 12 Years a Slave. Based on a true story, it illustrated to her just how horribly humans actually can treat one another and how indifferent we can be to another’s plight, especially if it makes our own life easier.
You can easily detach yourself from compassion, empathy, and humanity if doing so offers you a less difficult existence. It starts with something as simple as not picking up dog crap because you bending down far too difficult. So that poop eventually gets into our waterways. Jeez, it’s just dog poop! you may be thinking, but I say it illustrates something bigger; it illustrates indifference. History has shown that indifference can perpetrate much higher costs.
Indifference is the reason videos go viral, including the video of a fourteen-year-old actor, freezing and without a coat on a brutal winter day, begging for money as people walked past not even looking his way—that is until a real homeless person came up to him and gave him his coat. Haven’t seen it? In the video clip, you can hear the homeless man saying, “It’s tough out here and we need to look out and take care of one another.” Yes, yes, yes, we do need to look out for one another; we need to break free from our chains of indifference.
Indifference is something that is learned from one generation to another. If you have children it is even more important that you demonstrate love, kindness, caring, and empathy. This world, this ecosystem that God created and that we live in, is built specifically to show the value of every single creature.
Okay, so now the task before you. Yes, you will try not to be indifferent . . . How in the hell do you do that? you may be thinking. I believe it starts with being aware, moving your thoughts from “me” to “we,” and then it takes action. Stop and give a dollar to the person on the street (more if you’ve got it). Find an organization you can get behind and volunteer! There is nothing more fulfilling then volunteer work. Even the simple act of meeting a friend for lunch is moving one step further away from indifference. Seriously, the simple act of taking a phone call from your relative or friend when you are sure you don’t have a minute to spare for them helps to erase indifference. If you see an injustice, have the courage to do something about it.
There are a million other ways to prevent indifference. Perhaps it can be as easy as remembering to recycle. You may say, “I don’t litter, I already recycle, I got this,” but I would state that it is taking that one step further that keeps you from being indifferent. For instance, when you see trash on the street, rather than walking past it thinking, What pig left that here? pick that trash up. When you encounter someone who looks like they are in need, make eye contact and smile at them. That smile could be the thing that stops them from going home and ending their life. It’s called the butterfly effect and it is a theory that the flap of butterfly’s wings on one side of the world could literally cause a hurricane thousands of miles away. Dropping indifferent tendencies can have that sort of wide-ranging impact on our planet and on humanity. Be a beautiful butterfly and cause a hurricane of kindness. Flap your wings, relieve yourself of your indifferent nature, and—not to sound too cliché, but I will say it—go ahead, “Be the change . . . ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CwCvpEMEJU
Reflections
HOW CAN YOU BREAK THE CYCLE
OF INDIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
What if you woke up tomorrow with
only the things you thanked
God for today?
Tomorrow: A mystical day where 99 percent of all human productivity, motivation, and achievement is stored.
“Tomorrow” is such a beautiful word! Tomorrow offers you opportunity and another chance to figure out your God-given purpose in this world (yes, you have one, maybe even more than one). Tomorrow offers you forgiveness, too. Like when you start a diet, eating clean all week and feeling great, and then reward yourself with beer and loaded nachos on the weekend. That can’t be just me! We can tell ourselves, I’ll get back to it tomorrow. (Thank goodness because, honestly, it was a long week and I really needed that beer and nachos!) It happens with fitness as well (does it ever! u). One day, we run optimally, then the next day we’re unable to finish a mile without taking a break to walk. Or when our yoga poses feel perfect one day—strong, beautiful even—and then the next day our “warrior one” pose looks and feels more like it should be called “wounded warrior.” How about at work? I am sure we have all experienced that workday or workweek where we are riding along on a wave of success, only to watch as someone else gets the promotion, the raise, the accolades. Or worse, we make a silly mistake on the job and come tumbling off that wave of success.
Currently, I am working on a book (I must have finally finished it if you are in fact reading it). But it took much longer than it should have. I would start writing, only to see an email pop up or a photo on Facebook that needed my “like” or “comment” distracting me so much I wouldn’t even remember where I was going with my prose.
Wait, where was I? H Oh, yes, tomorrow . . . There is always tomorrow. Until there isn’t. Because, reality tells us, our tomorrows here on Earth are limited.
What does tomorrow offer to you? I think the answer is ridiculously simple. It offers you: One. More. Day. Isn’t that the goal? The pursuit of having one more day. Isn’t that the reason you eat healthy and exercise? Because of a belief that it will equate to longevity? Tomorrow offers hope, opportunity, blessings, random encounters, and the time to forgive. One day more offers the opportunity to make up from that argument; to get over the anger felt about a perceived injustice; to take out your cookbook and get back on the road to eating healthfully; to get on your spin bike or hop up into a headstand (yes, I know, any yogi worth her salt does not hop into a headstand); another day to kiss your loved ones; and one more day offers you a chance to make a stranger smile. Perhaps most important, tomorrow gives you another day to forgive yourself for yesterday’s failures. One more day provides space and time—a well-needed distance from the prior day’s events that might provide some clarity. No matter how bad it seems today, and for some of you reading this it may seem really, really bad, tomorrow provides the precise calculation of distance and time that you may need to change your perception and to allow random engagements with others that may simply change your life’s trajectory. When it seems it absolutely can’t get any worse, and then you wake up and tomorrow hands you even worse . . . there is still always another tomorrow with blessings waiting to be had.
Tomorrow. The place where 99 percent of all your achievement is stored! Tomorrow is on its way, and with it, endless possibility.
Reflections
PUT IN WRITING WHAT YOU HATED ABOUT TODAY. BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP CROSS IT ALL OUT!