Moving Forward into the Foreword

This is part 2 of the foreword--DRAFT. Why people should read this book. Why Michelle is equipped to share the message. Here goes....

Fear prevents us from living. Fearlessness is a magnificent teacher.

For two eight-year-olds, sledding was the highlight of a surprise snow day. Michelle's father emphatically warned us to not go near the ice-covered creek to the side of the hill. Michelle held the reins at the front of the sled. I manned the rear with my arms around her waist. As her dad gave us a push to start, I realized we were veering toward the creek as Michelle giggled. Shrieking the whole way, half horrified, half excited, I braced myself for the flight over the creek bed where we landed head-first in ice-covered water. No more sledding that day.

Stripped out of dripping wet snowsuits and wrapped in cozy blankets, we played dolls and drank cocoa with marshmallows by the fire. A good end to a day made thrilling by an icy creek.

A few years ago, Michelle and I visited her father who, at the end stage of Huntington's disease, resides in a nursing home. We laughed and recounted that memory to him and in spite of the catatonic state he appears to be in...his eyes lit up and crinkled into what I know was a smile in his eyes. Broken rules can make amazing memories.

But living fearlessly doesn't always mean breaking rules. It can be breaking out of molds or habits. Showing who we are to others. Oftentimes revealing who we really are....to ourselves.

So many people get to the end of their lives with regrets on how they should have lived. The blessing of being diagnosed with a long-term terminal illness is that it provides a motivation for living more abundantly. And the blessing for those who embrace their sick loved one is that we begin to live differently and without fear.

Fearlessness is a magnificent teacher. This book invites you to hop on the sled.

 

Capturing the Essence

My last blog post was named "Before the Forward" but in googling how to write a "foreword" I discovered I had misspelled the word. But how perfect the word "forward" was for that particular post because I needed to spit out the venom inside me regarding Huntington's Disease in order to move ahead, to focus on the learning and inspiration that hardship brings.

And so I am propelled forward to writing my chapter for Michelle's book.

Paragraph 1--DRAFT

I see a skinny smiling girl with long blonde hair rolling around in the shiny grass. She is laughing and flirting with me and I think she is probably the same as me--three or four years old. I wonder if she has words because she won't say anything back to me no matter what I say--she just keeps rolling around in my neighbor's dewy yard laughing and smiling like she has the best secret in the world.

That is my first memory of my best friend. It is imprinted in my mind like a really peaceful dream-hazy and happy. I can't help but think of the irony of me writing a Foreword for her book. At the young age at which I met her, we didn't have the language, the words, to communicate fully. And here we are as adults, conveying finally in this book, those precious secrets of a giggling girl rolling in the grass.

Looking back, I believe the author was gifted with wisdom from the beginning. Perhaps the universe blesses those who will carry heavy burdens down the road with illumination on living. On getting the most from our lives.

39 years later, I am drinking coffee with a beautiful woman with shiny blonde and silver hair. She is in the moderate stage of Huntington's disease which means difficulty walking, talking, and uncontrolled movements. She is throwing her head back laughing although she has lost the words to fully express her joy or her sorrow. She has asked me write the foreword for the book she wrote years ago when she had the language to capture her wisdom; her learning from living with a terminal illness that slowly strips away your life until only your essence remains. Hers is beautiful.

This book teaches how to dig into the essence of who we are and live authentically--taught by someone who knew no other way to live.