{"id":885,"date":"2012-07-27T17:25:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T21:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=885"},"modified":"2012-07-27T17:33:39","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T21:33:39","slug":"healing-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2012\/07\/27\/healing-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Healing Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My dear friend Wanda has graciously agreed to contribute to Ordinary Legacy as she journeys back to life after losing her, our, dear Jay.\u00a0 Learn from her, she is wise as a widow can be and getting wiser all the time though she is not ready to admit that quite yet.\u00a0 As I always say, “Grace, thy name is Wanda”. Lend her your ear and your support, pass her words to those in the same situation so that they too can know they are not alone.\u00a0For those of you who know like you know please\u00a0lend your comments and experiences to Wanda’s so that a collective body of healing work can be established. I’ve created a new catagory just for her called Healing Friend.\u00a0 For those of you who don’t know Wanda’s story I have re-catagorized my chronicling of Jay’s last weeks so that you can get to know them both.\u00a0 Welcome to Ordinary Legacy Wanda I’m so glad I wore you down my dear.<\/p>\n

With Wanda’s permission a repost from her Caring Bridge Journal of July 27, 2012:<\/p>\n

Having to OR Getting to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several months ago I was presented with an AHA moment thanks to Sylvia, my counselor.\u00a0 Too many times in our thoughts and conversations we say “we have to do (something)” but if we turn that around and say “we get to do (something)”, think about how that will affect us!<\/p>\n

As I reflect on that, I realize that Jay lived his life with the “I get to” attitude more so than the\u00a0“I have to”.\u00a0 I often marveled at how well he dealt with his health issues and very rarely would he complain.\u00a0 In fact,\u00a0most people would not have known about his kidney transplants by the way he lived every day.<\/p>\n

So I have some days when I need to remind myself that I get to…….\u00a0 Of course, there are times that I feel down (sometimes\u00a0so down it’s hard to breathe) and feel that life has unfairly\u00a0handed me a severe blow. But I get to share with people what it is like to go through something as traumatic as losing a loved one, I get to figure out a way to help myself and hopefully others going through this and I also get to enter a contest that shows me how amazing, loving & supportive friends and family can be! By the way, still no news on contest results.<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing ~ I get it!\u00a0 I spend a good deal of time trying to\u00a0outline in my head, where I get to go from here.\u00a0 That remains a work in progress!\u00a0 And most likely, will be for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

I get to feel the\u00a0connection of\u00a0special moments with friends.\u00a0 The other day I ran into Tom, who as teenagers\u00a0Jay was the first to befriend when Tom moved into the area.\u00a0 Naturally, I got my hug.\u00a0I then told him it was the last day of the contest and I was nervous, anxious and excited so as he was choosing songs on the jukebox,\u00a0I asked him to play something for luck.\u00a0 After enjoying several of his choices, I kept asking him what song he played for me\u00a0and he said I would know.\u00a0 Obviously the suspense was killing me.\u00a0 And then I heard it ~ Emerson, Lake\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 & Palmer “Lucky Man”!\u00a0 It was beautiful, perfect and brought tears to my eyes.\u00a0 Jay was a lucky man even though his life was cut short.\u00a0 But I am a lucky woman to have had him as my husband, my friend, my soft place to fall, my love!\u00a0 So thanks, Tom, for that truly special moment!<\/p>\n

I get to look forward to this weekend with a celebration of Christian & Maya’s engagement!\u00a0 Maya has invited me to join in with her dress shopping and I am so honored.\u00a0 Jared will be visiting as well, although I will miss Kel & Ev.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad you are “getting to” read this and if what I’ve written gives you a different spin on life that will make me very happy!\u00a0 I am thankful that I get to call you friend!<\/p>\n

Much love, Wanda<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My dear friend Wanda has graciously agreed to contribute to Ordinary Legacy as she journeys back to life after losing her, our, dear Jay.\u00a0 Learn from her, she is wise as a widow can be and getting wiser all the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-eh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}