George Bernard Shaw

 

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.

Henry Ford

 

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.

Don Marquis

 

Some years ago I attended a self-improvement seminar and the speaker was Jim Rohn. He said, "Everything matters in life, some things a little and some things a lot, we just don't know which is which." And I believed him.

Now if I may, I would like to relate a personal experience which occurred when I was a motorcycle officer that strengthened this belief and taught a young man that everything in life does indeed matter.

I was a motorcycle officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and I was working speed complaints out of West Traffic Division. On the 6th of January, 1986, I was working a speed complaint on one of the streets in the hills of Bel Air. It was around 9:30 in the morning. I was stopped at the base of a hill and had set up my radar on the handlebar of my motorcycle and was watching the traffic coming down the hill.

This was a residential area and the road was narrow with numerous curves and was posted at 25 miles per hour. I had just finished writing a couple of tickets when I heard the audio on the radar, looked up the road and saw a small sports car coming down the hill. I glanced at the digital readout on the radar unit and saw that the car was traveling close to 50 miles per hour. I stepped out into the street and waved the driver over to the curb.

The driver was a young man in his early 20's on his way to UCLA for a morning class. I told him why I had stopped him and started to write him a ticket. He, of course, didn't want the ticket and tried to talk me out of it. His name was Christopher and he was a good kid. But he was trying his best to get me to not write him a ticket. Never rude, always polite, but determined to convince me to let him go.

We bantered back and forth, he would raise his voice in support of his position, but I calmly explained why he should get the ticket. When he saw I was still going to write him the ticket, he asked me, "What If I had not stopped, you were not on your motorcycle, would you have chased me?" I replied, "Most likely not".

About this time, I heard the audio on the radar and noticed that the digital readout registered 52 miles per hour. I looked up and saw a young man coming down the hill on a motorcycle. I stepped out in front of him and waved him into the curb. He was going too fast and passed us, but he was slowing down. I walked towards the motorcycle rider and my back was to Christopher.

The motorcyclist had turned around and was coming back to me. The he suddenly made a quick U-turn and sped down the hill. I turned around and walked back to Christopher and said, "Well, one got away."

He said, "I waved him on".

I said, "What?"

He said, "I waved him on."

I replied, "Oh, no! You should not have done that."

He had a puzzled look on his face and asked, "Why not, it won't matter?"

I told him everything in life matters, some things a little and some things a lot. We just don't know which is which. The look on Christopher's face clearly indicated to me that he did not believe me. I finished the ticket and we talked a little more about life and philosophy, then Christopher went to class and I went to court.

Three days later, I was back working that same area and had three cars stopped. While I was writing the tickets, I noticed that a car coming up the hill had stopped across from me. There were three or four guys in the car. It was obvious to me that they were waiting to talk to me.

I finished the last ticket and the driver of the car got out and walked over to me. He had a very sad look about him. I could tell something was bothering him. As he approached me, he asked, "Do you remember me?"

"Yes," I replied, "you are Christopher."

He then said, "You taught me a valuable lesson the other day when you told me that everything in life matters. I didn't believe you then, but now I do."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Do you remember the boy on the motorcycle?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied, "I do remember him."

"Well," he said, "he was my roommate and that is why I waved him on. I thought I was helping him. After he turned around he made a wrong turn and went down a street, which ended in a cul-de-sac and hit a large planter in the center of the cul-de-sac. He died instantly. You were right when you said everything in life matters."

I was shocked and found it hard to believe, even though I had been with LAPD for 18 ½ years. We talked for a few more minutes. I expressed my sorrow, we shook hands and then we both left.

I rode to the station in Venice and looked up the traffic reports for the 6th of January and sure enough there it was. I still could not believe it. I mentioned what had happened to another officer whose was in the station at the time. His response was that the kid deserved to die for fleeing the scene; I thought this cannot be happening; I don't want to be like him.

As police officers and especially motor officers we are suppose to be saving lives, not pleased because some kid made a bad decision and died. Over the next several days I gave a lot of thought to this situation and my life in general. I decided I didn't want to be a police officer anymore and I needed a change. So I resigned in February 1986 after 18 ½ years with LAPD to pursue my passion, network marketing.

I thought that I should listen to my own advice about how everything matters and look at this situation as an opportunity to make some serious changes in my life. I've never regretted leaving LAPD even though my business plans didn't quite work the way I had hoped back in 1986. But over the years they have and I have had a successful network marketing business since 1995.

Could now be the time for you to make a life change? If it is, I would encourage you to do so. Based on my experience you will not be sorry. I will be 65 in September 2008, I'm in great health and could not be happier.

 

Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you.

Cynthia Kersey

 

The gem cannot be polished without friction.

Chinese proverb

 

 

W. Clement Stone

 

I lost my innocence on April 25, 2006, two days after my 34th birthday.

I woke up that morning with hope and more faith than I had ever had in my life. With a quiet confidence that I had prayed with my whole heart and God had heard me, and He would help my family and me in our time of need. But what did God actually do? Nothing. My Mom died that morning. She was 60 years old. I went to bed that night numb with shock, but with my eyes wide open.

Mom’s loss was sudden, complications from a surgery that had seemed to go well. She was released from the hospital four days after the surgery and was recovering on schedule. Then she started having pain, and before anyone, my dad, the surgeon, or even she herself realized how bad her condition was, she collapsed and never woke up again.

The surgeon told us he didn't know what happened. Usually if a patient has pain or complications, there is time to diagnose the problem and treat it, but my mom deteriorated so fast, there was no time. We finally concluded that God just took her. There was no other explanation.

The day I lost my Mom, I lost my faith as well. I never thought I would have an easy life with no problems, but I had firmly believed my entire life that God would hear my prayers and answer them. Growing up I heard so many stories about God miraculously making illnesses disappear, healing people against all odds, and answering impossible prayers, that I couldn't understand why He wouldn't do that for my family. I was terribly disappointed and angry with God. I refused to pray a ny more at all.

I never told anybody how much I hated God. I was afraid my Christian friends would argue with me and quote scriptures about how all things work together for good and how God will never fail us nor forsake us, and that's not what I needed to hear since I felt that God had failed me.

A few weeks before Mom's death, in early April before we even knew about her surgery, I had noticed an 8-week continuing education class on Grief and Loss, offered by the local community college. It was a new class and stood out among the computer, hobby, and self-improvement offerings. Although I felt drawn to the class, I did not register because I felt strange going when I had not experienced a loss myself. Little did I know that a few weeks later I would have plenty of exper ience.

I returned to work a week after Mom's funeral and signed up for the Grief and Loss class, still unsure of whether I should go. Somehow I showed up. I had nothing else to do. And in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but wonder if this was God providing for me after all. The instructor, Nancy Murphy, was patient's advocate who worked with the elderly in nursing homes and who had a desire to help people understand death and grief. She had lost two of her brothers as children, a third brother when she was sixteen, and her father a year-and-a-half before.

The three other students in the class included a large black man who had recently become a pastor; his wife, who had lost her grandmother, her mother, and her sister all to breast cancer; and a small 20-something former heroin addict, whose teenage sister had committed suicide when she was thirteen. They were not the kind of people I would normally associate with, but they understood the loss I was going through and I found the class to be very comforting.

Nancy was so kind to me and stayed late after every class to talk to me and see how I was doing. We would stand in the parking lot for half an hour after class talking. Nancy told me the class might be too early for me, too soon after my loss. Many adult children who lose their parents don't fully feel the impact of the loss for months, and they tend to join support groups months later instead of right away.

But, I think the class was exactly what I needed at the time. The class gave me direction, gave me people who understood what I was going through, and led me to some books to read that gave me a greater understanding of grief. Without the class, I would have been lost and unprepared to deal with what I was feeling.

The funny part is that a continuing education class would normally be canceled if it had less than six students. This had happened to me several times in the past. But somehow, this Grief and Loss class was allowed to run with just four students. I think it was because Nancy was so enthusiastic to teach it that the coordinator at the community college made an exception.

A year later, in August 2007, I saw Nancy Murphy again in a restaurant at lunchtime. She was as sweet and kind as she had been the year before. She told me that she had not taught the class again; she had gotten busy with work and in the future would try to target the class to healthcare workers. I tried to explain to her that the class was perfect timing for me and exactly what I needed. She said the class helped her as much as it had helped us.

How can you tell the difference between coincidence and God providing for you? I like to think that God provided that Grief and Loss class just for me. I would have been very apprehensive about going to a grief support group and probably would never have gotten the help I needed. But classes I'm not afraid of. I have a Ph.D. I've gone to lots of classes.Nancy Murphy said that she has to believe there is a purpose in loss. She has to. That's the only way she can make sense of it and have some peace. And I think she's right.

My faith is coming back slowly, little by little, but I know it will never be the same. I will never believe like I once did. I will never be as faithful, innocent, and naive as I was before. I will always remember how God disappointed me.I can only hope that God has a plan and a purpose for my life after all and my mom's death was a part of it. And when I doubt, I think about Nancy Murphy, her kindness, and her Grief and Loss class that only ran at the exact time I really neede d it, and I wonder.