TO REMEMBER ME
If by chance you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever. - Robert N. Test
At a certain moment a doctor will determine my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body. And don't call this my "deathbed". Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teen-ager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellowman.
Give my soul to God.
Remember Me (Piano Piece) Link http://youtu.be/8wEj-NWAFG8
Recycled Web Page
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Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: Footprints & Inspiration
| New Message on Association of Laboratory Technologists | |
& Inspiration
Reply
Recommend Message 3 in Discussion
From: ALTPresident1
I was browsing through my archive
mailbox and here's what I think is the best commencement
speech ever given to new graduates at Villanova University and
probably anywhere, It's quite long so I'm letting the best
ones out of the box. ... It was the SPEECH OF LIFE by novelist Anna
Quindlen.
My work is human nature.
Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your
life and your work. The second is only part of the
first.
"No man ever said on his deathbed, 'I wish I had spent
more time at the office." - A friend wrote to Sen. Paul
Tsongas (who was diagnosed with cancer).
"If you win the rat
race, you're still a rat." - Words my father wrote to me on a
postcard.
"Life is what happens while you're busy making other
plans." - Quote from John Lennon
Here's my
resume: I no longer consider myself the center of the
universe.
I show up
I listen
I try to laugh
I am a good friend to my
husband
I am a good friend to my friends
and they to me
You cannot be really
first rate at your work if your work is all you are.
Get a life in which
you are not alone.
Find people you love
and who love you. And remember love is not leisure.
Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail, Write a letter.
Get a life in which
you are generous and realize that life is the best thing ever, and
that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so
deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it
around.
It is so easy to
exist instead of to live.
I learned to love
the journey, not the destination.
I learned that it is
not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you
get.
I learned to look at
all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because
I believe in it, completely and utterly.
Learn to be
happy.
And think of life as
a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy
and passion as it ought to be lived.
Congratulations to
Noel of La Mirada, California (Nora & Elde) in his
graduation from the college of pharmacy. Good
Luck!
E-mail from Fely -
ALT Contributor
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category.
Published 7/22/04 ALT MSN Group
Web Page: Footprints and Inspiration
Published 7/22/04 ALT MSN Group
Web Page: Footprints & Inspiration To Remember Me
Published 7/22/04 ALT MSN Group
Web Page: Footprints & Inspiration To Remember Me
What an inspiring speech. Thanks for sharing......CC
ReplyDeleteFOR MY FELLOW UST
ReplyDeleteTHOMASIANS....
"Life
should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a
pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used
up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW! What a
ride!"
HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1.
Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the
doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
2
Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3.
Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever
Never let the brain idle. " An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the
devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4.
Enjoy the simple things.
5.
Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for
breath.
6.
The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with
us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are
alive.
7.
Surround yourself with what you love, Whether it's family, pets, keepsakes,
music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8.
Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it.
If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9.
Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a
foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.<font face="Book Antiqua" color="black" size="5"
EXCHANGE VISITOR PRIEST
ReplyDeleteFather Simon Peter is from the African Country of Uganda.
Every summer, usually around July or August, he'd come to our parish
in Skokie to help the other over-spirited priests in the celebration of
daily and weekend mass and going to hospitals, wakes and at death beds.
And then go back to Uganda at the end of the season. The very first time
he went home to Uganda he brought with him gifts donated by parishioners of used
computers for a village school, toys, books, pens, old shoes and clothes for the
children. It probably was not repeated because he had to pay out of his
own pocket enormous taxes for all the used goods. I heard this year
Father Simon Peter is having difficulty entering the United States due to strict
immigration policy and heightened terror alert. In the past he
participated in the Chicago Marathon finishing among the best time and went to
soup kitchens to serve the homeless. In one of his homilies, he told us of
his experience in one of the shelters in Chicago. One of the guys who must
be new asked him when did he get out of prison. Everyone at the church
laughed.
I would like to share with you some of his
thoughts....
One of the many things that continue to boggle my faith is the suffering of
children and the innocent. Right after my Deaconate ordination at
Mundelein, I returned to Uganda. Back home, I went with the pastor of my
home parish to do house to house visitation to anoint the sick and dying.
To this day these visitations are very disturbing and shocking. You get to
see raw pain, raw poverty, poor sanitation, poor housing, things that people
can't hide from anyone. And yet in the midst of immense squalor people
welcome you with joy and with what seems to be a certain sense of hope. We
went to a home, where the father of the family had just died of AIDS and had
been buried that week. The grandmother welcomed us to a heart-wrenching
sight. Here was a very beautiful young mother, in her early thirties,
dying of AIDS, filled with sores, itching all over, complaining of fever,
headache and internal pains. What was even more painful was to see three
of her emaciated children, five, three and barely one year old, afflicted with
sores, itching, skin and bones all from AIDS.
Many of us have suffered physically, emotionally, socially and otherwise.
In some instances, our suffering is so personal, so intense, so immediate, so
unique, to the extent that we suffer so alone unwilling to let others walk with
us in our sorrows. We feel so abandoned in our pain. The consolation
I find in being a believer is that we are not alone. Do you ever wonder
why the all powerful, all loving, all knowing God did not end suffering? I
do. But I do not know why! To paraphrase Victor Frankl's expression, 'to
live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in suffering.'
There seems to be a certain kind of wisdom that suffering brings to
humanity. In your life and in my life, there is a certain depth of wisdom
and compassion which only suffering can give. It makes us understand, or
at least, imagine that those who are suffering are going through. It gives
you and I an opportunity to reflect about life in general and our o
Dear B*U*S*T* - Thanks for accepting me as a member. You are all prolific writers and sharing your stories is making me think. Please keep on telling...
ReplyDeleteThis is the last e-mail of the beloved NBC
ReplyDeletereporter DAVID BLOOM to his family. He died of a pulmonary embolism on
April 6, 2003 while with the US troops covering the earlier stage of
the war in Iraq. Upon reading his thoughts one may interpret that he
was reaching out to God without knowing it at the time. What he knew
though was God was waiting on the other side to welcome him from his return
journey....
"GOD takes you to the depths of your being - until you are at
rock bottom - and then, if you turn to him with utter and blind faith, and
resolve in your heart and mind to walk only with him and toward him, picks you
up by the bootstraps and leads you
home."
FULL DISCLOSURE: I'M NOT AN ORGAN DONOR.
ReplyDelete