The things we leave behind...

This has been an eventful week for me. i have been battling the unknown in illnesses and waiting for my lab results, dealing with hypoglycemia, and playing catch up in class.

i thought i would dispense with the negative first so i leave lots of space to get to the good stuff.

This week, i decided that no matter how i felt, i was going to have a wonderful week, and you know what? The week out did itself. i have had a wonderful week from start to almost finish, and you know what, i think it will end with a bang. i saw beautiful people, did wonderful things, acted the fool, sang and danced my way around the campus, made a few new friends, and got to know some i didn't know i had. Thank you God!

You may be asking, "What has that got to do with your topic?" Here is the answer.
The things we leave behind....
This week i know i left behind smiles, and laughter.
i want to think i left behind hope, and rest, and joy.
This week something i made became a part of a legacy in someone's memory...So I left a memory.
But it goes deeper than that;
Tonight i watched a bit of the PrimeTime Live piece on Prince Harry, the "Wild Child" of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. They did a piece on his "gap" year. It started out with much partying and reveling, so unlike his brothers "gap" year of service. Mid-stream he makes an about face and spends two months in Africa, in a mountain kingdom of orphans and AIDS. i watched as he became the legacy his mother left behind. i watched him be human, and humane.

i have two sons, and i wish to bequeath the legacy of love and service i was given by my parents. i don't volunteer in any service organizations, in fact i avoid organizations like a plaque.
i don't go out feeding the hungry on Thanksgiving, or in soup kitchens, or participate in protest marches. Sometimes i feel a bit guilty about that as i watch so many or my friends galvanized about one project or another. All busy running here and there, saving the world one cause at a time.

It hits me though, that i do my part, in my way, though it has no non-profit standing and is not a tax write off. i change my world, and give back, by just being me. The smile i left behind on faces all this week made a difference that may not be quantifiable, like in head counts of people served in a soup kitchen, but it counts in days made better by one smile. i give back each time i helped a friend this week, that needed help, that may or may not have asked, or may have been a friend i didn't know until i knew they were there, and they needed help. i made some bowls 2 weeks ago, one of them was auctioned off today at "Empty Bowls" and the proceeds will go to feed the hungry. i showed up at the event, and paid the fee, and bought the T-Shirts and that money will go to help too. i fed someone today who was hungry, not starving, at least not that you could tell, and probably not in dire straits, but still that counted too.

The things we leave behind don't have to follow the popular concept of good deeds, and giving. When we leave behind a moment made better by us being in it we shake and move the world as powerfully as Oprah with her philanthropic deeds. Someone wrote:
God said, "Your task is to build a better world."
"How?" I replied. "This world is such a large vast place, and there is nothing I can do."
But God, in all His wisdom, said,"Just build a better you."
-Author unknow

The thing that really stuck with me from that PrimeTime Special was something the Diane Sawyer said when she spoke of what the Prince and the orphans shared with each other. She repeated an African saying that in English means "As I go, I am wearing you." With every moment of our lives, each connection we make for good or evil, or for that matter the ones we do not make, we leave a piece of ourselves and carry away a piece of others. i hope this week, when others look back they find the piece i have left behind of me, is a piece that is not a burden to carry.

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/