tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62940333380662628972024-03-05T11:06:58.610-05:00Life is like a sandwich...enjoy the big bites.A mini-bite of the semi-sentimental and semi-neurotic.
Just some musings of an unassuming two-time cancer survivor just trying to live a "normal life".Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-37297185167642715362016-04-30T17:23:00.000-04:002016-04-30T17:23:09.534-04:00Skypes and tea parties<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrc-yxX6U01CMFnxth3wE1aAKX5P8nrAKf7MPeKAILPbDZHojCYZ97Qxz8mX9C6iFxWYODLhwKLfDvhC8UKS96fl0yNEqCNnAxEx9G1MLoCuC-ifaxhDjk7ZBy9fBDQ2ImvDOQ6kD25KS/s1600/4-10-16+raeskype.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrc-yxX6U01CMFnxth3wE1aAKX5P8nrAKf7MPeKAILPbDZHojCYZ97Qxz8mX9C6iFxWYODLhwKLfDvhC8UKS96fl0yNEqCNnAxEx9G1MLoCuC-ifaxhDjk7ZBy9fBDQ2ImvDOQ6kD25KS/s400/4-10-16+raeskype.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's a time where technology gives us back quality time</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Moving away is hard on the heart. The tug of the heart calls often - yearning for presence. The presence of your loved one right before you.<br /><br />Rachel is coming of age in toddler years at a time when Aunt Leah is now more than a 10 minute drive away. I so miss being the pinch-hit babysitter and the on-the-way-back-from-the grocery-store "</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">drop-in" </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">visit.</span><div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRB8GYc8pRDmn-mV0wZUv91_C9PobjTzXmwZBHopW0Qz2FymnmKp2nFi64UKiGzoI9G6N6bE0LLbcKjDqt4J_yzP8P9PJltFSX6JEZyW0QVNeBc9AVWMJ5jXr5MyBGeb3S3QXBJJylapaa/s1600/et+rachel+skype.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRB8GYc8pRDmn-mV0wZUv91_C9PobjTzXmwZBHopW0Qz2FymnmKp2nFi64UKiGzoI9G6N6bE0LLbcKjDqt4J_yzP8P9PJltFSX6JEZyW0QVNeBc9AVWMJ5jXr5MyBGeb3S3QXBJJylapaa/s400/et+rachel+skype.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Uncle Patrick started the skype finger touch that melts my heart</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is something magical that is happening though. It is clearly felt in our chat times. Thanks to modern technology, video chat is soothing the ache that I have being apart from this little pint size philosopher. <br /><br />Rachel has mastered the art of the toddler webinar. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFUx__LGemRwtlRJFaQyX337diDg9GIYetnIwaxH-vsG5-ufVtEszqwOC8zJIiD856HZljiwn9J1oiJXK1QtWf0ZRlIksUsp1DUNk1bdCxCNmYS0_iQrtMb1HZBUQxw9BPZgGxKpg1pwE/s1600/pottypeekaboskype.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFUx__LGemRwtlRJFaQyX337diDg9GIYetnIwaxH-vsG5-ufVtEszqwOC8zJIiD856HZljiwn9J1oiJXK1QtWf0ZRlIksUsp1DUNk1bdCxCNmYS0_iQrtMb1HZBUQxw9BPZgGxKpg1pwE/s400/pottypeekaboskype.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Rachel proudly shows me the stickers she's earned in her potty book.<br />It's the book I brought her when she was 4 weeks old still in the NICU unit.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1vLaPhvgRS61XTxYu4e_qSivIwsyngoxpMdRqutrxM2rDLYTe0bmpwAgUl7yvJUh-eiti-0J_v0Ys4zrsYXYGyKaTttp5upRLNI7Ll12hjX29GiGgq8x_6juSCKwqfTRNSEqrmf-QYBo/s1600/handsinairrachel.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1vLaPhvgRS61XTxYu4e_qSivIwsyngoxpMdRqutrxM2rDLYTe0bmpwAgUl7yvJUh-eiti-0J_v0Ys4zrsYXYGyKaTttp5upRLNI7Ll12hjX29GiGgq8x_6juSCKwqfTRNSEqrmf-QYBo/s400/handsinairrachel.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sometimes we play silly games and sing songs<br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our talks have taken on a sweetly substantial filler of our in-person time, helping to sandbag between the times I can't be there in person: to hug, to feel the soft clasp of tender little babylike arms, or identify the crisp familiar scent of the sweetest little girl I know - a happy mix of fabric softner, baby lotion and today's peanut butter at lunch.<br /><br /><br />Lately it's not just been me that has been looking forward to chats with Aunt Leah (and sometimes both Aunt Leah & Uncle Patrick if timed right). <br /><br />Lately Mary tells me Rachel will be in the middle of something and say "I wanna talk to Aunt Leah". We're quickly realizing this is something she cherishes too...<br /><br />In the last few skype chats, we've been reading stories. I even recently bought a bunch of toddler books so I had more of a library to choose from. And she's been choosing books to "read" to me.<br /><br />"Are you ready?" she will say and anxiously clutch the book in her hands, ready to turn the page with the widest smile - a prize I can't even describe.<br /><br />This afternoon's video chat was one of my favorites...</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"I read you a story"</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stopping her story to show me her "piggy toes"</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SADq7uQhmiUyIcsnFE1EgT6a_i-Zequrm3hN8kwcF1ELj7Ox035ApfXgqXBWn91bRsBMMV0zT3FlEgBQmoxTy3JgjsRkKtgWwiiQGZ1TJt2dDNIg3sdU-ulrhqSFBm9wXEBKs4ENO3aW/s1600/laughingbaby.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SADq7uQhmiUyIcsnFE1EgT6a_i-Zequrm3hN8kwcF1ELj7Ox035ApfXgqXBWn91bRsBMMV0zT3FlEgBQmoxTy3JgjsRkKtgWwiiQGZ1TJt2dDNIg3sdU-ulrhqSFBm9wXEBKs4ENO3aW/s400/laughingbaby.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A time to giggle...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And a time to snuggle...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When you're more than a quick trip away from the ones you love there is a slow realization that comes over you. These video chats...these filler between our visits...<br /><i>these moments </i>matter so much.</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-7481805687448156192016-04-17T09:04:00.002-04:002016-04-17T16:48:40.771-04:00Little Shop of Wonders<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Something has been missing for a while. Ever since we've been living here in Yonkers, I've been longing for a gift shop that made me feel that magical "A-ha" factor. I usually shop discount and Marshalls for myself, but when I want to find a special gift I turn to a shop with a little bit of magic and charisma I need small, local and inviting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Yesterday I found that shop.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNcuZTyMNxNudlhjLEvDTtPz6Of3xwo1vyAB5-S8rtn6ubhddkRIVI7qi075KEzLARTOcE7nenuhIir_WULf6VwXCEsLQ_17ilBOV8rJWd1tyCnNn5GVstYSds64dgsPxqo4gEX2tuwV_/s1600/scarsdaleshopwindow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNcuZTyMNxNudlhjLEvDTtPz6Of3xwo1vyAB5-S8rtn6ubhddkRIVI7qi075KEzLARTOcE7nenuhIir_WULf6VwXCEsLQ_17ilBOV8rJWd1tyCnNn5GVstYSds64dgsPxqo4gEX2tuwV_/s320/scarsdaleshopwindow.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A gaze in this store's window<b> </b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "fira sans" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 1em; text-transform: uppercase;"><b>LA DENTELLIERE</b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> brought me inside</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On a beautiful sunny spring day I ventured out into the town of Scarsdale - set to explore the delightful storybook town. I fed some quarters into the meter and took off down the street. Shop after shop was absolutely beautiful and charming indeed, but the price tags (and a few times, the ambivalance of the shopkeeper) led me to feel a little bit like at any moment I was about to have a 'Vivian Ward on Rodeo Drive' moment.<br /><br />Thankfully, this did not happen, but it speaks to something deeply lacking in some of our finer shops - accessibility. What is it that you want to do in most of America - make everyone who visits your store feel that something beautiful is within their reach. Better yet, a beautiful interaction is the bonus of shopping in a smaller store. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I believe in shopping local when I can - helping small businesses thrive and today I found one shop in a sea of many that was truly worth the 20 minute drive.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJyMUS4kb9TeMeVSLK9ZedckPj2izGsgmQkujYO9WzYPqqcnCshM1ZizJ8nePQru3NSqkzfaL9_DwEVihGv_A2CswfbiuGC7hzkAYfdSeShj9gOY14uEXmEcCzpdUXbbeq-nALRCeKRpf/s1600/3scarsdalebedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJyMUS4kb9TeMeVSLK9ZedckPj2izGsgmQkujYO9WzYPqqcnCshM1ZizJ8nePQru3NSqkzfaL9_DwEVihGv_A2CswfbiuGC7hzkAYfdSeShj9gOY14uEXmEcCzpdUXbbeq-nALRCeKRpf/s400/3scarsdalebedding.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gorgeous daydreams of threadcount</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This shop reminded me so much of my favorite 'go-tos' of home, Parkleigh and Eleventh Hour, and there was something I felt in the air of this shop that truly sparkled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "fira sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 32.2px;"> LA DENTELLIERE - </span></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Pgv7hVSAesmqHY7w610uMxrqtgqOk0eOdX_RUfar0ehcMQruzXSlY5GWlKEeblHWNzqSsDBwizVlF-gmr86G1ZbVqrU5v479iTxFPDA4g7DUyE45ILzL8TkPRGrq7It04cSRplsixkQj/s1600/2shopkeeper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Pgv7hVSAesmqHY7w610uMxrqtgqOk0eOdX_RUfar0ehcMQruzXSlY5GWlKEeblHWNzqSsDBwizVlF-gmr86G1ZbVqrU5v479iTxFPDA4g7DUyE45ILzL8TkPRGrq7It04cSRplsixkQj/s320/2shopkeeper.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shop owner, Michelle</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;"> on 35 Popham Rd, Scarsdale NY<br /><br />I found a perfect gift there for under $12 and picking it up, I felt a satisfied ease. I should tell you that that the feeling only increased when I went up to the counter to pay. The shop keeper Michelle and her daughter Charelle were incredibly sweet to me and I just fell in love with their business. <br /><br />Michelle told me that she started the business with the idea that it would be a shop to welcome the casual gift buyer looking for, like me, a beautiful small gift that wouldn't break the bank on up to the customer who was eyeing the $10,000 chandelier. Her shop stands out among banks of others that sell luxury but unfortunately miss the mark on the comfortable connection factor. <br /><br />This is a factor I take very very seriously. I feel inspired to buy from business owners who truly believe in connecting with their customers - whether they are going to buy a $4 greeting card or the 1,000 thread count sheets...<br /><br />Wow, what a lovely store!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBWegfgbE78piA15v_LPpl44s-cysV5BomG34PEqYEcDyVsXSkw30J_asuHKgok5U_K0XrDP65U9CnHG_oBIZVYGpWbA2Qigu31JIhZrHHMIIFq9MntqusEHAagbPgA2N4f7-VvEVbIaa/s1600/1Daisyscarsdaleshop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBWegfgbE78piA15v_LPpl44s-cysV5BomG34PEqYEcDyVsXSkw30J_asuHKgok5U_K0XrDP65U9CnHG_oBIZVYGpWbA2Qigu31JIhZrHHMIIFq9MntqusEHAagbPgA2N4f7-VvEVbIaa/s320/1Daisyscarsdaleshop.jpg" width="240" /> </a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeefRkn7WBGX5a2QXNFN-tagFAcU2gUzXNvNGGf15-7KCKOUF2UnGMIxnVAK7z3Zei-JtQTpSKpF9NJJlcBqKndT6ZwAn-5fxhNfsYb_wIv-wNblbDHxeSuSVGCLuVgQ4EgoqCxea-WdBA/s1600/scarsdalegiftwrapped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeefRkn7WBGX5a2QXNFN-tagFAcU2gUzXNvNGGf15-7KCKOUF2UnGMIxnVAK7z3Zei-JtQTpSKpF9NJJlcBqKndT6ZwAn-5fxhNfsYb_wIv-wNblbDHxeSuSVGCLuVgQ4EgoqCxea-WdBA/s320/scarsdalegiftwrapped.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">In some ways, I think I take after my parents in the shopping world. My Dad especially, who to the downfall of his pocket (and the storekeeper's credit) could be persuaded to become a lifelong customer if he has a good chat and likes what he sees on the shelves.<br /><br />I returned home with such a light feeling. This shop made me want to come back and shop again and even further, it made me feel embraced by Scarsdale even though I had just minutes before felt hesitant. Quite an achievement I say and hence, I merited it worthy of a blogpost.<br /><br />One more note...a little rusty on my French, I googled the store's name, La Dentelliere.<br />Guess what it means? It's a lace-making machine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">As the great great grandchild of a Brussels lacemaker, I think I was meant to find this shop. Some call it a shopping trip, I call it destiny!</span><br />
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-81196922484323032492016-03-14T08:14:00.002-04:002016-03-15T10:20:24.294-04:00Leaps of faith<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's funny how sometimes our lives can be guided by a gentle whisper. <br />When ignored that whisper is no longer a quiet background noise.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When ignored it takes on more the sound of a clashing symbol - a resonant and clear sign of something completely unplanned, but heavily and remarkably magnetic...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A gift from Karen, a fellow cancer survivor</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Three months ago Patrick had a job offer in New York...<i>of all places. </i><br /><br />Funny thing. Three years ago Patrick took a leap for me by leaving New York. He left this same city so he and I could share a zip code and truly grow our relationship.<br /><br />Back then he took on the very 'controversial role' of an actor moving <i>from</i> New York -<i> headed Upstate - REALLY Upstate -</i> Rochester, New York. It's a controversial role because virtually no actor does it unless their intending to leave the profession. Actors pile into New York, a city of plenty, and stay there. To leave this bustling island almost always means leaving the craft.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">His then-agents scratched their heads. He wasn't moving to L.A...going <i>where? And you intend to keep acting? Love makes you do crazy things, </i>I'm sure they surmised. <br /><br />While he watched rent payments decrease,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> ironically theater work actually increased for Patrick. In a move that made no sense to anyone in his business, he more than 'made it work' maintaining work as an actor based in Rochester NY. His agents proved incredulous of his decision to relocate and so Patrick decided to represent himself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He happily proved everyone in his crazy business wrong because that's how willing to take a leap and willing to stick to his gut instinct my (then husband to be) is. This strange recipe worked for his career and it worked for our relationship - as you know, we married in August of 2014. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Fast forward to Fall 2015.</i><br /><br />In the midst of my own employment gap and while contemplating new job opportunities ...Patrick suddenly found representation again. This time his new dynamic manager was willing to 'think different' and take a chance on an actor living a six-hour-drive away. Suddenly Patrick was making multiple trips to New York for his first television auditions in years. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Patrick shooting his first pilot 'Unfiltered' </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He would drive there, park in an insanely expensive garage, un-rumple his shirt and walk steadily towards the audition. <br /><br />No one in the auditions was ever the wiser - or even guessed he had woken up at three in the morning and driven from Rochester for his 15 minutes in the casting room. He would practically grab a quick lunch across the street, couch surf for a night and head straight back. <br />Despite driving through and in internationally renowned traffic in a round-trip circuit, he was incredibly persistent and undaunted. <span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://lifesandwiches.blogspot.com/2015/05/heres-to-scrappers.html" target="_blank">(You might even say a scrapper).</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The pay-off was quite remarkable. In that incredibly small space of just three weeks he </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">had booked two television roles.<i> Orange is the New Black </i>and <i>Blue Bloods</i>. And this - </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">after being out of the television casting pool for years. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick with Magnum P.I. himself</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then word came of a brand new offer. <br /><br />An open ended run in New York. <br />Housing for the first part of contract. Housing provided in New York City?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br />"I need to go with you."</i><br /><br />Before I even let out those words, I considered them for at least three very sleepless nights. I was afraid of the words escaping my lips and fear that followed letting them out.<br /><br />Adding my piece to this equation would make this new opportunity less of a temporary move. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I knew New York City...I was a small town girl. I grew up in a town with two stoplights before I moved to Rochester (a comfortable level of 'big city'). </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sundown on my train to New York</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Full disclosure here: I was frightened of Manhattan. Patrick had known this when he lived there when we began dating. People move to New York when they are guileless and young - not on the jagged edge of "settling down."</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZztqah8dQ-Sck8lv6a3ETsmMWcv8d01Vzzy8aqC9YPXQc9Lc0PLoZ-A6mt0JZYnr8yOAP8UQcXPEBXOMr2ODnwiRt1B4lKIRqutwjHo4bN_DxuBC-uazvHHZ28VNbZwRW1z0aRJeJbw0/s1600/nycskylineuws.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZztqah8dQ-Sck8lv6a3ETsmMWcv8d01Vzzy8aqC9YPXQc9Lc0PLoZ-A6mt0JZYnr8yOAP8UQcXPEBXOMr2ODnwiRt1B4lKIRqutwjHo4bN_DxuBC-uazvHHZ28VNbZwRW1z0aRJeJbw0/s320/nycskylineuws.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our rooftop view from West End Avenue </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yet, I knew New York was calling him once again and he was living more than 300 miles away from where the real dance was. Here I was at a point where things were far more possible for me to move. Could I let my own fear get in the way of a major chance for him when I had the freedom to leap? The answer was no.<br /><br />A month into Patrick's stay in New York I joined him. I borrowed the largest rolling suitcase anyone in my family owned (Mom) and stuffed it full of clothes and boarded a train. I have to admit, that morning I felt like the gypsy that I had been years before. Uncertain yet resolved to do this. <br /><br />Please know dear reader, I was afraid. I cried a good deal of that morning. I sobbed <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbJTLwlJAehoVNvLVGXN0vk0PYE4TJePuNSpdCcut_OFo2xxR9XAwS7sfPNRS2T8aFa4LevWxsXiZnIF-fA_0Uyrdb_Ft3Xxxca3X0YZaSE8UsKExkh6kBacUFmfHYBsfrhpiWwLvZ2M5h/s1600/openingnight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbJTLwlJAehoVNvLVGXN0vk0PYE4TJePuNSpdCcut_OFo2xxR9XAwS7sfPNRS2T8aFa4LevWxsXiZnIF-fA_0Uyrdb_Ft3Xxxca3X0YZaSE8UsKExkh6kBacUFmfHYBsfrhpiWwLvZ2M5h/s320/openingnight.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opening night -the cast of Shear Madness</td></tr>
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hugging my niece and my Mom goodbye that morning. I cried in the train station as my Dad sat and waited with me holding my hand and telling me he knew I was doing what my heart told me to do.<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Imagine how hard that is for a parent to do when you'd rather have them close to you.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then suddenly we were living in the Upper West Side! That night when I rolled into Manhattan and my husband put us in a cab was surreal. So too were the several days and nights after it, as I ventured out in a city that puzzled and overwhelmed me. Very much like Dorothy feeling she was not in Kansas anymore.<br /><br />Gradually I stopped fearing things. I learned to haul groceries the New York way, three bags in each hand and choking on a receipt with a price that didn't include the abundant selection of a Wegmans.<br /><br />I learned the rhythms of our borrowed neighborhood, the ebbs and flows of it all. I loved the gossip about our super chic temporary housing and learned how Jon Hamm and Charles Grodin had been tenants in the building. I must admit before I learned they were <i>former</i> residents I took every ride up or down as an opportunity for celebrity excitement.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Though I had an advantage to most "new to New York" inhabitants - a husband who knew the city like the back of his hand, I liked indulging my solo explorer time. I loved figuring it all out.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ringing the famous Nasdaq bell</td></tr>
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<br />When I had somewhere to go alone I found it a challenge. I learned the subway, the buses and the streets by trial and error. Though most of the subway's daily passengers looked world-weary and vacant to me I tried to hold in my sense of wonder. I learned fast that eye contact was almost always a wasted luxury. Sometimes I would breathe in slowly and try not to hear the brash squeaking and the metal clacking and just meditate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Over time New York slowly but surely grew on me.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The clerk at the bodega around the corner smiled and began to recognize me and even smiled. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The constant howl and grinding sound of traffic no longer became a stimulant - it lulled me to sleep. The subway card slid more confidently in my hand through the machine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I began to stop asking why people lived in this overcrowded place and appreciated the thrill of it. We got discounted tickets to the hilarious <i>Something Rotten</i> and got to see Patrick's good friend John Cariani play Nigel Bottom, a role he originated. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A chance to play conductor at St James?<br />Can you blame him?</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">John shows us the wig room<br />No synthetics here ladies!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Afterwards John led us around the winding backstage of the St. James Theatre on West 44th Street. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the wife of an actor I've been backstage before but John's tour was pretty impressive. I resisted the urge to ask to play dress-up in a multi-million dollar costume collection in the same historic theater where Rogers and Hammerstein premiered their Oklahoma and The King and I and Carole Channing first walked out as Dolly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These are the things that enchant the citizens of this city and keep tourism pumping steady streams of revenue pumping solidly in. Magical indeed.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />I have to admit New York grows on you in waves. The experiences wash over you and then quietly settle into your normal-everyday encounters. It's funny how I made this transition. Quietly astounding how this happened suddenly and yet gradually and here it is almost five months later and we've made the decision to stay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That in itself was a process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Living here with included housing is a whole different reality to truly deciding to make a commitment to staying and finding a place to live. And it soon became abundantly obvious that a married couple (with one of us temporarily unemployed) could not stay living in the Upper West Side.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The search for a suitable apartment is a rite of passage for all New Yorkers. And as I've learned it's always a sobering one. The search for a place to suit a married couple (two people trying to inhabit one space) is an even steeper lesson in reality versus the New York of our dreams.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wish I could show you some pictures of the apartments we saw, but the truth is there wasn't an easy angle to take the picture with without being in a corner. Yes, on our budget we were introduced to the micro-apartment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The search left us totally frustrated and annoyed. Patrick's old neighborhood in 3 years time had suddenly become too expensive to consider. <br /><br />I wanted an elevator. Elevatored buildings in striking distance of Manhattan were far beyond striking distance of budget. Living vertically is its own challenge.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9aTrlQ_mcfJDsrZWmM_uAxKnLM9oTGQWx5wQZbgJUC1zQrK_iXo-zopxE4d_0-Se7AfBS3p3Vc7BtI26-MA57gZ4ez4P4G3qkUola2SprjqKndTKua9-W0E-CLA1PUyC48NOc_ohni8xH/s1600/yonkerspark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9aTrlQ_mcfJDsrZWmM_uAxKnLM9oTGQWx5wQZbgJUC1zQrK_iXo-zopxE4d_0-Se7AfBS3p3Vc7BtI26-MA57gZ4ez4P4G3qkUola2SprjqKndTKua9-W0E-CLA1PUyC48NOc_ohni8xH/s320/yonkerspark.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And we found a winner!<br />(the park directly across from our apartment)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some of the addresses of the places we looked were darn-right scary. My "worthy of signing a lease" became a combination of two things...<br /><i><br />Would you push a stroller or walk a small puppy down this street?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Would you let my Mom visit us here?</i><br /><br />If the answer to these questions was no, I think it was safe to say we were continuing the search. And so we did...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was a 40 minute sojourn outside the city that finally found us. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yonkers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As in "Lost In..." Ironically, a Neil Simon play. The Noonans have a special place in their heart for this American playwright...and perhaps so too the city of hills (as they call it).<br /><br />Stepping off that train in Yonkers felt like honestly a first breath of fresh air in the apartment search. That day we found several "no-gos" until we found the "A-ha" apartment, but the fit felt right.<br /><br />It's not easy to put down a deposit and sign your name to an apartment in a brand new city. The dedication of a year of one's time and the signing on of "I live here" says very much that you are committed to the purpose of relocation - no longer an itinerant, able to drift in or out. THIS was the step that made us resolve to a brand new direction...and sign our names officially to that direction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, my friends: it's been almost five months since I rolled that suitcase full of clothes out of Rochester, saying Geronimo at a time when I thought everything in life would have been figured out. And since that time I moved our entire apartment to a place a six-hour-drive away...and watched wistfully through the rear view at a picture I love as it got smaller behind me. I'll always know where home is, I'll always return to it.<br /><br />But there is a time when a whisper guides you and you listen...scared as you are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You have to have faith that you'll make it through. Stumbling blocks aside, sometimes you learn so many new things about yourself in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are times when everything you know of life has to be rewritten to listen to the whisper or you'll always wonder <i>"what would have happened had I listened?" </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have learned so much in these months. Patrick too. Truly, we've learned so much together.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCmHtrZKbQYajB_ze7xQZ3vtCEIuOBiKmFBKBOOB70qvBXnflQaeECfY9c_tQaLKrYfEmTTB1JWMvF_vfzrFhx0wukRL-qpQE7Cxju8AEl-YOVPkz2BvcGvyzy6lmxTUcUUK8FFfAjvCy/s1600/thanksgivingdinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCmHtrZKbQYajB_ze7xQZ3vtCEIuOBiKmFBKBOOB70qvBXnflQaeECfY9c_tQaLKrYfEmTTB1JWMvF_vfzrFhx0wukRL-qpQE7Cxju8AEl-YOVPkz2BvcGvyzy6lmxTUcUUK8FFfAjvCy/s200/thanksgivingdinner.jpg" width="183" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I took up cooking!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />I've dealt with being unemployed in a city expensive to navigate <i>with </i>a job.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've learned to make useful time and fill it with exploration.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've learned to cook and bake...really well.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've taken some classes and learned some new things.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've taken on my first job in theater merchandise.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>AND</i><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've successfully navigated the job search (MAJOR SPOILER...TBA)<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've learned more about myself than I could have ever imagined.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, here I am...and here we are.<br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can take the girl out of Rochester, but by God you can't take Rochester out of the girl. </span><br />
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-31685864509305637662016-02-18T10:10:00.002-05:002016-02-20T07:58:09.608-05:00When love speaks above disease<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Often when people pay tribute to a loved one who has died they reminisce back far into the years. I only knew Sharon Noonan for four and a half of her years on earth, and as many who knew her will attest, I didn't ever know her the way she once was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Little did I know when I entered a restaurant on a misty September evening with my friend Jennifer that I would meet the</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> man I would one day marry and his wonderful mom - together. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Patrick charmed me for sure, but I have to say the two were a package deal and I was drawn to Sharon every bit as much as her sweet son. She was warm and enthusiastic with sparkling eyes, and every bit engaged in our lively conversation at the table that night. She peppered me with compliments in a charmingly uncommon way. "I like her," she would say and look directly at her son. It was unfiltered and quite simply adorable.<br /><br />Perhaps it was the repetition of an identical question that tipped me off that something was different about Sharon. Or perhaps it was the gentle way Patrick guided his mom to the menu that prompted curiosity.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8XkIWZYoz-6tl1wpt05wAwH4tJle-tdFVBIJAhU5Mvh5fOHNgSHT1KTArDO2kDoZxbIXL8XiFeLqOtpLJPF6zBCY2MhkYinZJRCjYX2s2IXuAtck2Ss5_FT_W_wenf0PT0Dkzk-TNZJZ/s1600/Two+Vine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8XkIWZYoz-6tl1wpt05wAwH4tJle-tdFVBIJAhU5Mvh5fOHNgSHT1KTArDO2kDoZxbIXL8XiFeLqOtpLJPF6zBCY2MhkYinZJRCjYX2s2IXuAtck2Ss5_FT_W_wenf0PT0Dkzk-TNZJZ/s400/Two+Vine.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thanks to Jennifer I have this picture of the first night we met.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />That night, as I was of course told later, Sharon urged her son to "call that girl". Patrick already intended to call me but mother's intuition was a nice reassurance I'm sure.<br /><br />A diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was a very present reality in her life, but it never ever defined her. Incredibly, she broke through the barrier of her disease to do a very healthy and ordinary thing - forge a relationship with her son's significant other. Yet, it was not by any means an 'ordinary' relationship,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />I'm told the Sharon Noonan of that night was not the same woman many had known. I could feel short-changed or robbed in some way, but honestly I feel incredibly blessed. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Remarkably, Sharon was able to bypass the grip of dementia and remember me for almost all of the time I knew her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Sure, there were nuances and details that were missed, but over the years she was every bit learning who I was. She did this in a way that science or neurological reports might never accurately explain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I had been dating Patrick for almost six months when he and I made the long road trip out to Wisconsin to visit her for the first time after our meeting in the restaurant. I thought at first as we entered her apartment that she would ask who this woman was and find a stranger, but her arms wrapping around me stifled my worry.<br /><br />We spent such a golden few days going to breakfasts at diners, bowling and visiting with </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Patrick's </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">sister Karen's family. One afternoon while driving around the back country roads, Patrick asked his mom "would you like to go see Tara?" "OHHH Yes," she exclaimed with a kind of childish joy I had not seen in her before. Patrick turned the wheel down a long road and pulled up to a farm. We were going to see Sharon's horse.<br /><br />"Tara!" she yelled and a sleek bay picked up her head from grazing, pricked her ears and ran up to the fence. No longer hers in ownership, Tara was living here on a farm with several other horses. As Sharon approached the mare almost danced toward her. I watched Sharon pat Tara's neck as the mare leaned in to accept the gentle touch with such loving familiarity. She turned to me smiling "Do you like horses too?" Hahaha <i>do I like horses? </i>We were two birds of a feather. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Sharon was calm and comfortable as she led her longtime friend around by the halter. She began to tell me of the many times she had ridden this beautiful animal as we both took turns stroking her. The soft nickers of this beautiful horse were music to both of our ears.<br /><br />As Patrick hung around in the background, Sharon snickered..."he doesn't like horses quite the same as us." We shared a laugh looking over to see an ornery Shetland pony having a comical dance of avoidance with a 6 foot 2 male. Little Pepsi apparently had developed a strong desire to assert alpha male status in the pasture.<br /><br /> It was i</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n those moments Sharon's disease was hidden, blanketed over by her comfortable confidence with an animal she had spent so many years of joy with. I could see that there most of all beside Tara, Sharon was every bit herself, not lost in memory or confusion. Animals had been so much of the fabric of Sharon's life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A year later Patrick would propose to me on Mother's Day...and announce our news to everyone in his <a href="http://lifesandwiches.blogspot.com/2013/05/yes-thats-ring-on-my-finger.html" target="_blank">card to his Mom</a>. It was just another one of the beautiful memories I have of a woman who became such an important fixture in my life - despite distance and dementia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The most difficult decision had to be made prior to our summer wedding in 2014. Sharon was having extreme difficulty readjusting to visits outside her memory care facility. It was understood that a long trip and a stay in unfamiliar surroundings would be harmfully confusing for her. For both Patrick and I the mere thought of her not being there for our wedding was heartbreaking. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The answer became clear - if Sharon can't come to the wedding... The wedding indeed came to her, thanks to Patrick's sister Karen and husband Jim who helped us chose a lovely community center and set up a lovely spread complete with Karen's homemade carrot cake as our wedding cake. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVFzY1gRpyme-PTUQhsUP4Vn2gXs_1YAzcfnjaBJO6-eC5G6sgz-Skoyit_iRbrnAuLdmoaYlAx4kSX4XJTZaOI2LQAFUx0dOfUFWbz_IgrEeuZbCl_EBK6GahE3yWyzpK7giFaOpvX9P/s1600/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523524+%2528RL%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVFzY1gRpyme-PTUQhsUP4Vn2gXs_1YAzcfnjaBJO6-eC5G6sgz-Skoyit_iRbrnAuLdmoaYlAx4kSX4XJTZaOI2LQAFUx0dOfUFWbz_IgrEeuZbCl_EBK6GahE3yWyzpK7giFaOpvX9P/s320/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523524+%2528RL%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An impromtu second walk down the aisle</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1RYh_D62pdsKH_Lust4ChKfErpAubh4CTVqUgMpsptxAfo7Xd9qDtvQteXwYyqYzZMdHX8chQ6rze4byGoqv4kasLDyFOy3Ucc50-UlMydG1-wXcxNZjjq0hpehFZHMOlTHqIN162IXR/s1600/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523663+%2528RL%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1RYh_D62pdsKH_Lust4ChKfErpAubh4CTVqUgMpsptxAfo7Xd9qDtvQteXwYyqYzZMdHX8chQ6rze4byGoqv4kasLDyFOy3Ucc50-UlMydG1-wXcxNZjjq0hpehFZHMOlTHqIN162IXR/s320/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523663+%2528RL%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3TzJjLj5w_qW3ZJBM1XJc257O12vFAMLm0Rt8Bgt1qAeASkxj4187cfuqVyZuXfRY8uQRpV4JyMu6RWyRk8gGpEWV1lpbMZ93lj0tjIKGjNWtWxeCKTXHJ8cp9XRoevpzwuGbv5A5oOf/s1600/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523930+%2528RL%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3TzJjLj5w_qW3ZJBM1XJc257O12vFAMLm0Rt8Bgt1qAeASkxj4187cfuqVyZuXfRY8uQRpV4JyMu6RWyRk8gGpEWV1lpbMZ93lj0tjIKGjNWtWxeCKTXHJ8cp9XRoevpzwuGbv5A5oOf/s320/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523930+%2528RL%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our "Act Two" Wedding</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />We did the whole ceremony over with Patrick's brother Brian officiating. And afterwards on a little portable speaker we played "I Hope You Dance" and mother and son had the turn around the dance floor together they had both so deserved. Though my parents made the journey from Rochester to be there the bride's side was slightly tipped in balance. Sharon was surrounded by people she loved that day. Truly, it was her day and this bride wanted it that way.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next day after all was over she had forgotten the memories of the event. We sat for lunch with her in a booth at a Mexican restaurant she loved. Words were hard for Sharon at this point. Most of the time she spoke in short repeated words, not sentences.<br /><br />She had to be reminded that I was married to Patrick. It was as if the day before had never happened. But the joy spilled back over her again as we talked to her, walking backward through the details of that day. "Oh my. How wonderful!" she exclaimed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Patrick excused himself to use the restroom, Sharon seized the opportunity. In a moment I will never forget she grabbed both of my hands and looked in my eyes. Clear as day she said "I am so so happy for you two. So so happy." It was the most steady and solid thing she had said all weekend. It was as if she had worked up the way to say what she felt so important to express to me - and to me only.<br /><br />I smiled at her with tears in my eyes and squeezed her hands back. "I'm so so happy to be with your son," I said. She squeezed harder and repeated "so so so," trailing off as though the fleeting moment was being taken back from her- snatched back by a mind that so grasped onto the right to have it. Her words didn't matter. It was her eyes that danced with sincerity and conviction. It was the deep assurance any daughter in law could want from her beloved's Mom. This to me was my gift - an incredible one.<br /><br />When Patrick returned she smiled at him and no hint of our exchange remained. "Hey, did I miss anything?" he playfully joked. Truer words had never been spoken.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinZBFoJp074kbNjUWX2qJMq7lRCjA07_C4_zeMmWYFxL9dYuYwmkfOsCerbjciANF-tTeyOQqrmI47mXvjP9TB4PJb0S74Y4as7jMv5EynlDNixpbpC-9Eai9Nx4M8gHLr-nYTmC39jTaU/s1600/photo+%252812%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinZBFoJp074kbNjUWX2qJMq7lRCjA07_C4_zeMmWYFxL9dYuYwmkfOsCerbjciANF-tTeyOQqrmI47mXvjP9TB4PJb0S74Y4as7jMv5EynlDNixpbpC-9Eai9Nx4M8gHLr-nYTmC39jTaU/s320/photo+%252812%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick and his Mom - August 2015</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As months rolled on, she gradually struggled more with my name. Eventually she would forget altogether the second voice on the phone call or the woman beside her son. On our visit last summer she looked at me with a puzzled look I had never seen in her before. Thankfully, she knew Patrick. She spoke very little, a stray word or two, sometimes a nod. I accompanied Patrick as a stranger, but one with obvious affection for her son. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />The grip of the disease had finally taken me from her active memory. As sad as that was, I know I had the gift of a time where I had lived clearly in her mind. Against all odds.<br /><br />Through many years she held my name on the tip of her tongue and instantly brightened with victory when she stumbled for it and found it again and again. Except for this past year, she always knew me. It was not what was expected by any textbook, but it was mine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Two weeks ago Patrick and I got the call we had known would one day come. We drove 14 straight winter hours to be there in time- fearing we would miss saying goodbye. At three in the morning we joined Karen who had not left her bedside once. <br /><br />Sharon had love surrounding her. She was able to hear the voices who loved her saying goodbye and telling her to let go, both of her sons and her daughter. She hung on for two days, but left on her own terms. She slipped out of this world knowing that she was loved.<br /><br />As I held the hand of this woman who gave birth and lovingly raised the man I love, I thanked God for the time we had. I will never ever forget her or the miracle she worked to truly be in my life. I will never ever forget the remarkable Sharon Noonan.</span><br />
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-23185837270491747162015-11-11T10:28:00.000-05:002015-11-11T10:36:19.692-05:00Grateful to my veteran<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was a box of photos at the top of a bookshelf that for many years I could not reach. Like many curious kids, I loved finding old photos and most particularly photos of my parents. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One day boldness got the better of me and I was able to climb high enough to reach the old cardboard box.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The box marked 'Vietnam' in my father's handwriting contained pictures I couldn't quite make sense of then. The much younger Dad in the pictures looked like a boy playing soldier to me. The murky haze of violence or the grim horror of war was out of those images. In those still frames young men posed for a moment, grinning or in some cases looking wide-eyed or playful.<br /><br />It wasn't until I was a teenager that I began to understand the gravity of the faded images that filled that box and the part of my father's past he had such a hard time putting into words for me. It was with time that I began to understand why he had such a difficult time answering my questions about that time and about himself and those other young men in the photos. It would be a while before I realized what 'shrapnel' was and how after years it could still set off an airport alarm when my Dad walked through security.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It sickens me to think that there was a time in our nation that people ever turned vitriol </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">or even apathy against those men who served.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the most part, we as a nation learned our lesson, but we've always got to remind ourselves that our veterans need and deserve our thanks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The emotional scars (much like the physical) are part of the sacrifice that our veterans carry with them for life. When we speak of sacrifice, this is much of what that word really embodies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The times when my Dad's hand goes to his heart at a baseball game I can know for sure that the chords of the anthem being sung are touching him quite differently then many others who hear it. It is these times I am in awe of my Dad. Sure, he's Dad and now even Grandpa, but he is a veteran.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I remember all he endured and all he sacrificed every day, but especially today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Honoring you today, Dad on Veterans Day. </span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-44124440353137094842015-10-25T08:39:00.006-04:002015-10-25T08:45:54.417-04:00Walking forward<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are times in our lives when we have no idea what is ahead. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm beginning to believe that these are the times that we are about to grow the most.<br /><br />I have been feeling that pull of change as I pack up suitcases and boxes with 2 seasons worth of clothes and belongings and prepare to head out to NY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Like it or not, I am about to grow again, to relearn a way of life for a while. It's an adventure that my husband and I don't have a step-by-step road map for and that's okay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ever feel like we begin to live less and less of our true potential when we write out the entire story before its lived? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We can't count on everything being the way we envisioned it. Sometimes the way we envisioned it wasn't even as wonderful or colorful as the way it changed and rerouted.<br /><br />I've been thinking a lot about this on my walks in the last few weeks, watching the emerald summer turn to the red and gold autumn. I love autumn walks the most. I imagine this as both a practical training and sentimental way to say goodbye for a while. Training for the walking ahead of me, living on the upper West side of Manhattan and a way to honor how much I love my charming and imperfect Rochester neighborhood. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last weekend I walked all the way to the top of Cobbs Hill and looked out on the view I've long gazed at, of the city I call home. Five years ago I trained on this hill for my first 5K, practicing running inclines. While I trained I was learning to strengthen the timid lungs weakened by cancer and thought of how my life could be different. <br /><br />Following that loop up and around the highest point I knew in the neighborhood, I gained confidence. I watched the colors change around me each time I came back. My body changed too. I struggled less and began to breathe easier with each loop. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In a year's time I was at the top of Cobb's Hill again breathing in the air and admiring the changing colors. <br /><br />This time it was the extension of a first date. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He was in town for only another week. He had a kind smile and soft, loving eyes. Over pancakes and coffee we talked about who we were in that usual way strangers do. After the meal and the requisite hour or so of talking in between bites and sips, he took me by surprise. <br /><br />Instead of the "well, this was fun, nice to meet you" thing, he asked if I had more time to just hang out. I was taken aback...where could we go...? I suggested we drive to the top of Cobbs Hill and go for a walk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I showed him that spectacular view of the city and as we walked, he reached for my hand. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This was unexpected - </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I guess I was so used to the awkward 'usual' way these first date things went.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In that moment I didn't see the future.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Four years later, this man is my husband and we have navigated so many other moments, decisions and plans. That won't change. We are following the road where it leads and if the road runs uphill along the way, we'll just learn to get up it the best we can.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm excited about this new chapter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-35914013933444558952015-10-17T09:41:00.003-04:002015-10-17T16:39:58.742-04:00A time for adventure<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Leah & The Machine</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nobody's life is easy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Each life is put together with so many little unique pieces, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">assembled in a way that each piece becomes integral to the other. Without us even knowing, this intricate assembly of pieces ensures that, in general, our lives are complicated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We don't know how complicated until one of the pieces falls out. Then we have to rebuild things, fill in with different pieces and rework the whole set-up. Most times, or so I hear from conversations with many friends who have had major change to the 'set-up', our perspective can change radically. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigt5FOiMtOb-UfR5f3z_YoD0Km37YjEpw-kPudGzGy1_3Y1iy-G3Y38UIL8cWTm_Hoc6keUjxxSEYHZW_x2_PWf0TYb9VAy_RhpCrHC3b-cRmYw54lZjExCF63yxoDhM2a5eZmt0e1Tn1V/s1600/47436435_747cb55015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigt5FOiMtOb-UfR5f3z_YoD0Km37YjEpw-kPudGzGy1_3Y1iy-G3Y38UIL8cWTm_Hoc6keUjxxSEYHZW_x2_PWf0TYb9VAy_RhpCrHC3b-cRmYw54lZjExCF63yxoDhM2a5eZmt0e1Tn1V/s200/47436435_747cb55015.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Though I left my job two months ago, nothing has changed in terms of my heart and my devotion to giving. Several friends and colleagues reached out and helped me reassemble inner pieces to fill a void. It's been a blessed time, rebuilding, relearning, reconnecting - and of course, making new connections and rekindling old connections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I say 'blessed' because I truly believe sometimes we lose our sense of self in pursuit of keeping things "together" and keeping all the pieces in place. It's only when a piece falls out that we realize life is about change. Adapting to this change is the real key to understanding that our crucial or core pieces are strong enough to keep us going while we look for the other pieces. Sometimes we become better by rearranging the pieces - by force or by choice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The last time I was rearranging like this I was not alone, I had family and good friends. Yet this time, I have a husband, a partner, a co-pilot. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wow, is this a new experience- rearranging the pieces together as a team. And again, all the more reason for it being a blessed time of learning and growth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><b>Rearrange, Relocate, Reconstruct</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Patrick, you see laughs in the face of "rearranging". His career is constantly shifting and changing. And he teaches me every day about how he thrives by these little changes to the moving parts in the machine. <br /><br />Months ago he got passed over for a part. It was an oversight that really hurt (at the time). Yet, little did we know the universe did him an incredible favor. In the time span that would have encompassed the part he lost, something came up that proved far more incredible. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, now he is embarking on a new role...and out of that also came several other opportunities.<br /><br /> For the time being New York, a city of 8 million is again calling his name and for once, his opportunity is aligned with my ability to join him.<br /><br />The universe in its crazy way spoke to me. Here we are riding this wave together as husband and wife. I will be joining him in this crazy city in just 10 days. It's the same crazy city he picked up to leave to be with me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An exciting possibility is rising to the horizon for me too. While I figure out my own shifts in the parts and pieces it's a time to realize discovery in itself is a blessing. Though nothing in my path is yet to be settled or solidified, it's a remarkable gift to know that my talents won't be wasted. Yes, I CAN reinvent. I just have to have the tiniest faith in reconstruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Changes and restructuring scare me. I'm not the person I was before cancer. Yet, I'm incredibly grateful I've gotten the chance to restructure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>In Her Voice, 'Go Get it, Girl' </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At times like this, there's a deep echo of loneliness for my friends who have died. I really do think about them often. Maybe it's because I want to share little stories with them and hear theirs too. Maybe it's because they knew me before, when we were all finding our way and for a time we were uncertain together. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've learned so much from these friends, through a disease I've grown so intimately to resent. There is a difference between resenting the disease and resenting where it takes us. Resent the disease itself, not the path it leads us on. Without cancer, I would have never met Jen. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She is one friend I have been thinking about a lot lately. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We shared that same fun-loving and devilish spirit and the desire to have our fun by challenging the ordinary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Jen was the kind of friend to invite me out to dinner with her and her husband, knowing instinctively I wouldn't feel like a third wheel as the single girl. <br /><br />She was the kind of friend who had no problem telling me 'girl, you need a new haircut.' This was convenient because as a salon manager she found a way for a really thrifty girl to get a really nice haircut for free. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was the kind of friend that begged me to tell her about my adventures in detail even when her own life was limited by doctors appointments. She prodded for more when I held back...she loved hearing the stories.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /> She was the kind of friend who called me up after four months of falling out of our chats to invite me to her house to visit her because she knew I would not be afraid of</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">how she looked or the</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> hospital bed or</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that she was dying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />She was the kind of friend who when I asked if there was anything I could do for her, she answered honestly. With gratitude that she gave me a chore and with no </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">hesitation</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I went out and got her the makings of a ginger ale float. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was the good friend I never really got to know as deeply as I would have liked. Yet, she was the friend I knew deeper perhaps than our time had allowed. She was the soul that I would have liked to have a lot more time with because we could laugh endlessly about the stupidest of things like old friends. That last crisp fall afternoon we spent together in her living room-turned-makeshift-bedroom was an absolute gift. She told me not to be sad for her because she had accepted her path, but she was excited about following mine. She was that generous of a human being. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And then s</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">he said something which would have sounded crazy...</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">crazy, if you didn't know Jen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> She told me she was feeling a little clairvoyant facing death. She chuckled. She was confident I was going to meet someone who was going to change my life, this guy would just make sense. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I nodded. But she knew. She smiled with an almost playful rebellion. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn't believe her and she knew it. She knew I doubted the whole "Mr. Right" bullshit. I'd seen proof of so many wrong fits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She really underlined her statement by grabbing my hand and smiling right into my soul. "It's gonna happen and I can't wait to watch." It was kind of eerily the same message my own grandmother gave me a year before, on my sister's wedding day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have to admit delightful surprise both Jen and Grandma were right on that count and proved me wrong...Patrick was unexpected. :)<br /><br />I don't know what's ahead. I really don't. Who does. I'm just gonna follow my heart again and work at things the best way I know how. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those dreams keep us living. The connections we have with those who inspire us...they keep them living too.<br /><br />Crazy to think my next adventure is now an adventure for two. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTyIyzVo2jqhtejnJ-yZhma8wsnblAfCtdtXH4yAugJ3aDU-W2xeJhKqzzHricj7JwnLjbihcaeZ3Vo9ouB_qMAAxz8yBv-ZINY2a8qrwZnMK_tWJzyhM-puTmrn8lHyLMSxKwPHpGzYs/s1600/IMG_0316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTyIyzVo2jqhtejnJ-yZhma8wsnblAfCtdtXH4yAugJ3aDU-W2xeJhKqzzHricj7JwnLjbihcaeZ3Vo9ouB_qMAAxz8yBv-ZINY2a8qrwZnMK_tWJzyhM-puTmrn8lHyLMSxKwPHpGzYs/s400/IMG_0316.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, not running for president...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />In my head, I still hear Jen telling me what she told me last time.<br /> "Go on and get it, girl."</span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-29576365637295428152015-08-04T21:49:00.002-04:002015-08-04T22:28:35.334-04:00Their lost memories are a loss to all<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiikmTBVsR85G5Pzii4hPlTV9UA-HubMG9BpBVrMVfT2RxrWDIHe3Qik6IQ5NadRavNCGdibefVx33BFbYZklwGaH9cw4rKphT5pavQA6zoDihdFZE9KwsOKQv1eckvFhwRrY8Vp9zZo4Id/s1600/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523930+%2528RL%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiikmTBVsR85G5Pzii4hPlTV9UA-HubMG9BpBVrMVfT2RxrWDIHe3Qik6IQ5NadRavNCGdibefVx33BFbYZklwGaH9cw4rKphT5pavQA6zoDihdFZE9KwsOKQv1eckvFhwRrY8Vp9zZo4Id/s400/Patrick+%2526+Leah+Noonan+-+Aug+31+2014+-+Whitewater+WI++%2523930+%2528RL%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our second wedding in honor of Sharon Noonan (fourth from the right)</td></tr>
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She knew me. For more than three years she knew me and asked about me and called me by name.<br />
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Whatever time I had, it was a gift. I had the pleasure of knowing that my mother-in-law really loved me. She told me all the time...often too many times to count. Those words are ringing sweetly in my mind and they comfort me.<br />
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It's more than any girlfriend who became a fiance who became a wife could ever ask when her mother-in-law to be was falling inside a cavern of waning memory carved by a disease - Alzheimers, clearly some form of dementia. Whatever name you put on it, it's been heartbreakingly stark to know at this point I'll never hear her say my name again. No matter what that feels like, it can't compare to the bitter ache I have for my husband...and what he has to endure.<br />
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Nearly a year ago we were all celebrating. By grace of time and the capacity of her mind then, we were able to share our joy with her. We found a way to have a wedding with his mom. It had to come to her. We did it all over again in Wisconsin a week after the real wedding - the cake, the dress (more travel-friendly version) and a smaller wedding guest list - all of Patrick's family. My parents flew into Milwaukee and met us there.<br />
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Patrick's mom smiled a lot through that day - though I'm sure parts of it were confusing and foggy for her...she knew her siblings and they had time with her. Though they say weddings are a bride's day - there was no mistake on this special day. This day was all for Sharon.<br />
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"I Hope You Dance" played on a little digital speaker in that community center where we staged this celebration. Patrick took his mother's hand and they danced. Finally, this was the lonely ache, the missing piece of our wedding in Rochester. I don't think there was a dry eye in that room.<br />
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I just can't stop thinking about how happy I was on that day to see that dance.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGRC7N4RxtinRCbgTBbmTf7iSfxS1_5NRsZ_gd2LftViK6KxF18BuwY7QCQUeHCfcRCdmA2S6EFmT7cOHoK87AoTgPM3gxsSmxUiTeFwyMk0UIotHeI4Es4FKoHwVdaxTIZqn6TRFZT9u/s1600/Patrickhismom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGRC7N4RxtinRCbgTBbmTf7iSfxS1_5NRsZ_gd2LftViK6KxF18BuwY7QCQUeHCfcRCdmA2S6EFmT7cOHoK87AoTgPM3gxsSmxUiTeFwyMk0UIotHeI4Es4FKoHwVdaxTIZqn6TRFZT9u/s320/Patrickhismom.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick & Sharon - Mother and Son Dance</td></tr>
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<br />Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-70164782290065199842015-07-21T10:50:00.001-04:002015-07-21T11:34:27.541-04:00Gratitude & the Eddie Bauer raincoat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Many married couples go through the growing pains of the home they've long outgrown. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Patrick and I are beyond the pale of frustration at this point with our humble abode.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The cozy one bedroom apartment with limited closet space that was tight for a single girl is beyond frustrating for two. Some day we will have another place to call our own - but right now is not the time. We are renters and that's going to have to be okay for now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So one conversation Patrick and I have had which makes good sense is on the subject of downsizing. Having lived as a bachelor in New York for close to two decades, Patrick is an expert at this. I admit it - I am not. Downsizing my wardrobe is tricky. I think I speak for many women who treasure pieces and have trouble letting go - even amidst duplication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I realized the other day that I had two raincoats. As I left work on Friday in the pouring rain, I set the green one down on the passenger seat. On my passenger seat was the other raincoat. Two raincoats. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One coral, one green.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I laughed to myself and realized this is evidence of my needed downsize.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKAEgNMkIri3Pp2ppOEqUHQqAPpMAzKbadhYD3VDrFEAshDbnGoDFuB1TLP2GvGwZIW6VNRidmXcDZ4THUdpFW7kBc7GoHYRwt1e8OLdZB9uzt9C_OATybJ25cVeOzZq4UdFmu6ReVE7V/s1600/7633d6a7449cb52e67e57f112d11ad46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKAEgNMkIri3Pp2ppOEqUHQqAPpMAzKbadhYD3VDrFEAshDbnGoDFuB1TLP2GvGwZIW6VNRidmXcDZ4THUdpFW7kBc7GoHYRwt1e8OLdZB9uzt9C_OATybJ25cVeOzZq4UdFmu6ReVE7V/s1600/7633d6a7449cb52e67e57f112d11ad46.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Driving home, I took the exit to my too small apartment only to be reminded of </span></div>
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A scrawny man was standing in the rain, head down and drenched and holding a cardboard sign that I couldn't read because rain had smeared the words.</div>
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Some signs don't need to be written clearly - the dejected look on his wet face said it all.</div>
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I rolled down the window and handed him my extra raincoat...the green Eddie Bauer that looked least like it belonged to a woman. He thanked me profusely as he slipped it on. </div>
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The light changed...and I had to go. I watched him hug the weatherproof fabric around him and I smiled and waved to him as I drove away. He had something to shield him from the merciless weather. I wondered with our stretch of rain how many times he had been out in the elements without it.<br /></div>
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I thought of Father Bill Trott, the pastor of my church growing up, and remember his mark on my life. Father Bill died suddenly when I was a freshman in college and I often think of him during challenging times. His philosophy was to be grateful first and foremost for the gifts we are given and to have faith that we will be carried along even when things look bleak. He absolutely believed that helping others was how we made ourselves richer. Father Bill was and is so right - love is our greatest resource. </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My luxury of a second raincoat could be a blessing in a moment to someone who needed it. In truth, my second raincoat was there sitting next to me blowing an airhorn signal that it was time to say goodbye. Things are not as important as people and the look in his eyes was the look of love for a stranger - a most transformative gaze for me that day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am grateful for my small one bedroom apartment and grateful for all I have to downsize.</span></div>
Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-52092449093283649222015-05-19T21:54:00.001-04:002015-05-19T21:54:27.222-04:00Take it from Aunt YaYa<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR3rhv9guORZxlIjm-6OcY_m86XdkeBbFpqgrGW7JiUUdkLHhgQCf82gaB_zFYDzBs8qB44SltceRKcur_7fLrnmnse6_IZkst0WSTsCI5_XVoSRW0x8Q0yUfZcXaqBP0HPLzfrxwHEEka/s1600/BabyRaecollage14mos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR3rhv9guORZxlIjm-6OcY_m86XdkeBbFpqgrGW7JiUUdkLHhgQCf82gaB_zFYDzBs8qB44SltceRKcur_7fLrnmnse6_IZkst0WSTsCI5_XVoSRW0x8Q0yUfZcXaqBP0HPLzfrxwHEEka/s400/BabyRaecollage14mos.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My beautiful niece Rachel has come a long way!</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She calls me YaYa. It's her attempt to say Leah. It's like the gold flecks of an angel's whisper</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> when she tries to say my name. It means everything to me.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There aren't quite words to describe what becomes of the heart touched by a little life. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She is a reminder to my heart of all the good things that come when we slow down and get to ground level...and open our eyes and ears...watching and listening with excitement at every moment. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My niece Rachel reminds me how an adult's life can get too complicated for enjoyment. It's a lesson she doesn't consciously teach but an all-too important one. Adults lose enthusiasm and wonder because they wrap themselves in complex and monotonous pursuits that are somehow supposed to prove our worth.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Children have the brilliant knack of discovering, learning, delighting and sharing.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>How is it that we adults become swallowed into the drudgery of a life we design?</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The mindfulness movement, in many senses, integrates all things regressive. It teaches us to go back to the simplicity of childhood. Currently, I see Rachel as my greatest mindfulness practitioner. She's my pint-size Pema Chodron.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Watching her discover splashing water, making sounds and adapting them to the squeals of her admirers, watching out a window at the birds swooping down into the trees.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Her life is one new miraculous and mysterious discovery after another.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I urge those of you who have previously been thinking yourself ultra-enlightened (and yet ultra-burdened by the world) to find a way at some point in the day to stop the cycle. Get down on the floor, pick up a crayon...study what's outside your window, instead of what's on your newsfeed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The decreased time and increased demands of life have a cost. The cost is our awareness, our appreciation and our enjoyment of the simple wonder of everything and what it means to be alive.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Seriously, laugh at a fart noise. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Stop being an adult long enough to remember that we get to be child-like when we choose to be and the reward is the time to open our senses to all the things we miss, the life right around us - waiting for our attention. Thanks Rachel. You are teaching Aunt YaYa so much!</span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-32889330205910198152015-05-15T07:12:00.001-04:002015-05-15T10:20:52.091-04:00Tell them now...tell them every time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK55k1oxt8ZEz0PlLdnPLtVlPseH8E5mXGbcMAP-VufI1UzalyceJZC750vpau5ODFPV8E3xdzgWWlrZG6lK1wE6yKN0ll8hQNcSQjl4OkjpmyzjGmlos1O6WWxSE92rL307skwm7kky1b/s1600/images-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK55k1oxt8ZEz0PlLdnPLtVlPseH8E5mXGbcMAP-VufI1UzalyceJZC750vpau5ODFPV8E3xdzgWWlrZG6lK1wE6yKN0ll8hQNcSQjl4OkjpmyzjGmlos1O6WWxSE92rL307skwm7kky1b/s320/images-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've had a sleepless night or two lately. I think the coverage of the train crash grabbed me in a way that I had not expected a disaster story to grab me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That train route of D.C. to New York my husband has taken twice in the last few weeks for auditions. <br /><br />It's kind of caught in my throat that this was his very route...and thankfully, this wasn't his week to make that trip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The circumstance, the timing, the randomness of why we find ourselves where we are when bad things happen are out of our control. Sure the astronomically rare odds that someone we know or love could be there in the midst of such a freak accident are small.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But for those that lost a loved one Tuesday, those odds don't matter because there they were in the midst of astronomical odds - shattered by disbelief.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />It's one lesson I'm going to take to heart today. <br /><br />My family has had this funny little habit through the years of never quite wrapping up a conversation without saying 'goodbye' and 'I love you' multiple times in every parting - phone or in person.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>I love you.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Bye, I love you...<br />okay talk to you later...I love you.<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(**Random forgotten mention & more conversation**)</span></i> Okay...Love you.<br /><br />It kind of has been the thing my husband and my sister's husband have laughed about in knowing our family and this kind of funny repetitive ritual. <br /><br />Byes and I love yous are always extended, sometimes almost to a parody-worthy level. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Somehow, through it's wackiness both of our husbands have also over time adopted it lovingly. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /><br />But it's what we do. Silly or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Say you love the people closest to you in your life...say it often, say it always. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Never part with those nearest and dearest to you without making sure they know.<br />Tell them now, tell them every time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-54825678894886637142015-05-09T08:58:00.002-04:002015-05-09T17:22:08.564-04:00Here's to the scrappers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yesterday was a tough one. And yesterday was a great one - all in the same breath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me explain something...I'm the wife of an actor. I married my husband's auditions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Callbacks and gut feelings can trap you with a sense of hope that you always want to be careful not to mistake as the sure thing. It's the dusty dance of rejections and rejoicing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's the fickle and sometimes mystical process of casting. And it is also the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">way we must let all things go after choices have been made...and settle in on, it's just the way it is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyone who has stayed the course in the arts knows this is the way it must be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For actors today it's a life of following a dream that cuts you down and builds you up over and over and over. You have to weather it with grace or be eaten by it whole. Every actor who has stayed in the profession </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">knows this feeling with a very sharp and honest acceptance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cue the "I Hope I Get It" song from A Chorus Line and all who have limited concept of careers in the arts will at least understand it on a 'scratch the surface level'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Within ten minutes of hearing that his 'hope I get it' was not to be - "the hope I get it" we had been both praying on, we were both thinking the same thing. New plan - scratch that, what's next?<br /><br />Somehow, something else is meant to be at this time. That's just what we believe because that's life and how we better ourselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"We're scrappers, you and I," Patrick said last night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And then I agreed with him. I'm no actress...that's for sure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However, what my husband and I have in common is seeking out something special out of the most challenging circumstances.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not saying missing most of your high school experience through misdiagnosis that comes back to bite you as cancer (twice) is the same as an actor's path. Yet, we're cut from the cloth of hard knocks optimism. Somehow in that way, we speak the lingo - one that helped us fall in love in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Curveballs. Bends in the road that take you down another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Transformation of sour lemons with the addition of sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Such <br />is <br />life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So after a heartbreak like yesterday...I've learned sometimes a door opens almost near the same breath to one closing unexpectedly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me explain. One day, two scenarios. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Heartbreak. Happy news.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Florida in July? Ughhhh thank God for air conditioning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I write this post because there are people in many professions who have to 'dog it' hard. I have to say actors have it tough. Forget your pre-fab Hollywood vision of the actor's life. Forget the public relations semi-fictional account of rags to riches stories of stardom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The craft and its decisions are governed, at least partially, by layers of influence that even its hardest working actors have no control over. Those actors with the biggest hearts accept that as part of the profession...dust off the heart on the floor and move on to the next thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am so proud of my husband and every other actor who lobby to stay with the ride of a lifetime - as hard as it may be, especially in its unpredictability. But that is life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The safe choice is not always the choice of our wildest dreams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Many have left this profession - the world of the arts can be thankless and colored with one too many tough clubs to the ego. Many have realized that this dream brings with it too many sacrifices and understandably, reroutes on life's winding road.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And don't let anyone fool you - husbands and wives, partners and families of those who work in the arts make incredible sacrifices. It's something we learn quickly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet, if the fire burns, we let it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And we scrappers will find a way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My husband and any other actor could tell you scores of stories of the 'almost big break' or the role that got away. Yet, somehow they are just muted Kodachrome memories that fade into the distant background. They blend into the collective reminder that no gig is for sure and every chance, even if it isn't the one you wanted most, is a new opportunity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My husband has the most wonderful combination of mid-Western boy next door and plucky confidence - it cut him through nearly two decades of living in New York. I remind him that his television and film residuals help pay the dues of what rent robbed him of with this long-suffering address.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ_va8wPHBT-c2fEg0BVuFN0KDWiQyztcqkF9TdXy5lfnqt4598WCaRJXHzqy57MqZHSudRr7Stl8IvsfGsFN94tpW1_nHFBkbXuarLW2izOPUrwLHiJm7_agwinEAPNDx_rYPjOXuT24Z/s1600/PatrickNoonan1993kudos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ_va8wPHBT-c2fEg0BVuFN0KDWiQyztcqkF9TdXy5lfnqt4598WCaRJXHzqy57MqZHSudRr7Stl8IvsfGsFN94tpW1_nHFBkbXuarLW2izOPUrwLHiJm7_agwinEAPNDx_rYPjOXuT24Z/s400/PatrickNoonan1993kudos.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Talk about Throwback! check him out!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Twenty one years ago Boston University paid for a full page ad in the back of American Theatre magazine. They featured a young actor who had won the Rex Harrison Award given to one actor each year who showed promise and carried on the tradition of one of theater's greats. My husband never talks about this...I once found it nestled in the few bits of memorabilia he brought on his move from New York. </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(He's the minimalist I long to be.)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That kid got his face on the back of a national magazine for this award. Rex's Harrison's widow personally congratulated him as part of his honor. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Big stuff in a time when all seems possible on the road following college. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yet, there are no sure things. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Except one, true heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the poetic way of life, my husband just accepted a role in 'Hounds of the Baskerville' at Florida Studio Theatre. This work is a hilarious take on Sherlock Holmes. He accepted it mere minutes after learning of the other disappointment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been watching Youtube videos of Hounds productions and laughing my ass off. Tying my husband's comedy with one of his first roles after college...is my idea of poetic forks in the road. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Back in the day, one of Patrick's first professional gigs was as none-other than Sherlock Holmes.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's kind of like coming full circle, at least I think it is. It's all about taking the shot you're given. After all, h</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">e took an extreme gamble taking a Rochester cancer survivor out for pancakes on the final week of a three week gig. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We both took a gamble believing that this city I love and one he has grown to love could allow us a place to both live our dreams. It's a challenge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We're used to challenge. We're kind of hard-wired that way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, yes, if I have to make a trek up to Sarasota in the swelter of summer heat...it's where it's at. I'd rather him within driving distance and home for breakfast (our little joke). I was looking forward to him finally getting to see the Independence Day fireworks up at Pine Grove...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's so freaking hot in Florida in the summer. Snowbirds evacuate the place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But you know what...I can't wait to go sit in air conditioning and see him in this role.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here's to the scrappers.</span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-36926818487825750722015-02-11T08:07:00.000-05:002015-02-11T08:14:02.741-05:00You just never know...Be kind anyway<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-JOWh9KOR7WCakN-l4rPh7EtziuX7pHmT-DTYjoiPm4XR9Dv51Hus5IYgFXh-GZVd4cAA-9Rg7PSV6_ZS6YZSYL5nqhBL0dpczqH8YkVHcHDp64VtoQd6irvdmyKpf2QCwhV-2iL4WSr/s1600/images-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-JOWh9KOR7WCakN-l4rPh7EtziuX7pHmT-DTYjoiPm4XR9Dv51Hus5IYgFXh-GZVd4cAA-9Rg7PSV6_ZS6YZSYL5nqhBL0dpczqH8YkVHcHDp64VtoQd6irvdmyKpf2QCwhV-2iL4WSr/s1600/images-1.jpg" height="320" width="257" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This quote always grabs me. Sometimes you don't know what those that pass in and out of our lives are going through. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's not always easy to be kind.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> This is truest in our momentary glances of strangers who throw us a wind of something negative. Those short but jarring moments make us want to fire back with the same. I always try hard to resist. Sometimes it's darn-right hard and I walk away with tears. <br /><br />I'm human, it's natural to feel threatened and react. Yet, my hope is always that I never change my own nature to someone I am not...and maybe just maybe kindness wins.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Most times we fail to discover what it is that makes someone unkind to us.<br />These momentary nasty moments make us write that stranger off. Feel contempt.<br /><br />About a month ago, I had an encounter at the blood lab that literally almost set my blood to boiling. Working with my incredible endocrinologist, I have been struggling with my thyroid levels for over a year trying to get a handle on them. Over the last two months we have been moving to blood tests every two weeks to monitor my sometimes precarious situation.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQci4alP68UnCGQn9HmQV9mv6QMy59ZUvssI4qedLeobgJUjgxCZ0YSzRn_SkTeTXdacb_O7ihMszFLtqxzJXupM_JEq-Hd2BY7pL2SbVPf_DAD-dKnZQEw8S6gie7p-nvdO48aQyVE1Sy/s1600/McNeely+Blood+Draw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQci4alP68UnCGQn9HmQV9mv6QMy59ZUvssI4qedLeobgJUjgxCZ0YSzRn_SkTeTXdacb_O7ihMszFLtqxzJXupM_JEq-Hd2BY7pL2SbVPf_DAD-dKnZQEw8S6gie7p-nvdO48aQyVE1Sy/s1600/McNeely+Blood+Draw.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The picture above pretty much illustrates how I used to face every single blood draw I ever had.Over the years, anxiety has been a constant for me during these 'simple' tests until I started finding comfort in one person and one lab.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There is only one blood lab I will go to- it's Wilmot's outpatient blood lab. <br /><br />With damaged veins from years of treatment, it's the only place I trust. It's the only place where I don't have to endure painful and frustrating attempts to be drawn. There has been one girl at the lab who always gets it right. Over the last 2 years she's gotten me every time- one attempt, over in no time, no pain.<br /><br />If I am not able to reach the blood lab on my lunch hour I race to get there before it closes at 5pm. One such time six weeks ago I was running down the hall looking at the Wilmot hall clock. Friday. 4:52PM. Almost quitting time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I knew my favorite phlebotomist would be packing up her things but if I made it in time she'd squeeze me in. I ran faster. Breathless, I swung open the door only to find a new face in the white lab coat. I started to feel my heart race as I signed in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She was just shutting down her computer when I signed in. She huffed out loud and begrudgingly checked my ID. Under her breath she murmured about getting out on time on a Friday.<br /><br />I apologized but began to explain I couldn't find time in the week before and this was my only window. "No, that's fine" she said unconvincingly, but as she watched me tap my left hand her eyes began to widen in fear.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />"Oh dear, you're a hard stick too, right?" She reached into the cabinet to hand me a plastic hot pack.<br /><br />I put it on my hand feeling the humiliation rise inside of me.<br /><br />I guess I'm pretty much every phlebotomist's worst nightmare at the 5 o'clock whistle.<br />I felt tears forming. Already anxious and fearful about this new person drawing the needle...now I felt like I should turn tail and run out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For some reason, I didn't. I needed these results and here I was. <br /><br />Deep breath. She drew me, and to my surprise it was quick, painless and she used the same talent as I'd known with Jeanie.<br /><br />I was tempted to go out of there in the huff she had greeted me with.<br />I decided to do something different.<br /><br />"Thank you for taking me. I know it's hard on a Friday," I said with my head turned away from her- averting my eyes for fear of the glances of annoyance she had greeted me with.<br /><br />"Sure," she said back in a perfunctory tone.<br /><br />But one more thing. As I headed out, I turned back and looked at her and tried to smile at her - hopefully it was somewhat convincing."Thank you for drawing me without pain. It's never easy for me with a lot other blood techs...and you did it well."<br /><br />I closed the door before I had a return comment. The whole ten minutes had been a lot to take in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not always easy to be kind. <br /><br />Sometimes cruel and impatient encounters by strangers or even those you know, can leave you easily led into dishing out the same. But I never want anyone to change how I am. It doesn't always turn out that way. But every once in a while I can persevere in keeping my calm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Never have I been more proud of doing this than yesterday.<br />This time I was early to the lab...4:30PM to be exact.<br />Sure enough there was the same woman who had huffed and puffed before.<br /><br />As she was drawing me this time, I looked at my last name on the tube. It was my married name...even though I had given her my maiden name (sure that insurance records had still not been corrected).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In astonishment, I talked with her about the whole process being a maze for me - making sure my married name was corrected. I made a natural assumption- asking her about if she ever had any of these difficulties with married name changing...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Her face fell. The steel facade immediately fell away.<br /><br />"I haven't been as lucky..."<br /><br />I could feel in every fiber of my being where she was.<br /><br />I had been there.<br /><br />"Well, you know I just got married this summer...and I'm no spring chicken."<br /><br />Suddenly, with only the two of us in this blood lab she began to tell me about Match.com and the challenges of facing her 40th birthday alone. <br /><br />"I don't need a man in my life..but I just always thought it would happen," she said<br /><br />"Been there, girl..." I said. <br />I almost gulped as I realized I was addressing her comfortably, like a friend.<br /><br />"Really?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />"How did it happen for you?"<br /><br />"I changed my way of thinking..."<br /><br />She leaned in and her eyes widened.<br /><br />As I proceeded to tell her about how I'd almost given up after cancer on finding a life mate...because so many guys who looked for 'that perfect girl' that I didn't fit their definition of their 'safe bet'.<br /><br />I told her I had previously followed the same old approach...picked the safe paths in life...walked the roads I'd always taken - in dating, in routines...in shutting out opportunities that were outside of my comfort zone.<br /><br />I told her I started believing in what might be...if I just tried something different. I was different...and that is okay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I told her if I just believed in possibility a little more...who knows? Nothing to lose, right?<br /><br />You never know if you don't try, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Her eyes began to sparkle.<br /><br />I told her about my husband and how we both took a chance on something that others had warned us was 'challenging'- long distance, different careers. <br /><br />We closed the rule book- and we tried it out together.<br /><br />"That kind of gives me hope," she said.<br /><br />As I left the blood lab yesterday the woman I had almost wrote off was smiling.<br />And with the sincerest smile she thanked me. No joke, she told me it was her last day.<br />She had been unhappy for a while and she was being transferred.<br /><br />"I'm sorry I won't get to draw you again," she said.<br /><br />"Me too. I hope we cross paths again."<br /><br />Miracles happen every day, friends. They happen when we work hard enough to get out of our gut reactions and think about a stranger who crosses our path.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Never forget. Be kind - every one you meet is truly walking a life we can't know on first glance. Sometimes the face we present to the world has been placed their because of hurt and disappointment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sometimes it takes just one moment, one stranger to change your day...<br /><br />BE KIND. PASS IT ON.</span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-16335776962653157292015-01-18T07:01:00.002-05:002015-01-18T08:53:06.354-05:006 years later the Z-Man still lives in my heart<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />The most influential people in your life. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Quick, think ...who are they? </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After they leave this earth - do they realize what this whole thing called life is all about and share it with you later on?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yes...and sometimes (if you're really lucky) they share that message while still here on earth.Yet, we miss that message far too often. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I guess I became drawn to Mitch Albom's 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' (read it and reread it and even own the movie) because of this very universal wondering.<br /><br /><b>Sometimes it does not require a close encounter with the afterlife or actually crossing over to receive a heavenly message. If we open our eyes and stop our own 'personal rat races' for long enough to be truly touched by someone's life - even a stranger - </b></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>something miraculous can happen. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet, most of us can be on our own track - hustling, bustling and miss a life that is supposed to intersect with ours. If our routines and obsessions abound and we dismiss this person, I believe we miss what we are supposed to learn THEN - in that moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My moment began in October of 2007. I had been trying to, on my off hours from work, chase down every young adult cancer survivor I could find in Rochester to bring them together. It bugged me that any of them out there were like me - feeling terribly alone and I just felt like we could be one big party together. <br /><br />I didn't really say it out loud, but I was looking for cancer survivors who had put their disease behind them and were moving on. I was not intending to find someone who would never put it behind them but live with great passion and joy, even as it robbed him over and over.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was this search that brought me to Zach. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixl981JnkJJZlOS4gKe3KpKxNL1Z-T9sv8Vnzmu9fQVHN1itM9F9Sj_JcwiugFm8-ABRfTlkU6uQCn4Qfl2sT6gWOmk0f7EDYQ49oLRBbco_ysGRNTm3hKveY0gkVEeoByBN88ka6S-AMO/s1600/ZachMikeLeahAlice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixl981JnkJJZlOS4gKe3KpKxNL1Z-T9sv8Vnzmu9fQVHN1itM9F9Sj_JcwiugFm8-ABRfTlkU6uQCn4Qfl2sT6gWOmk0f7EDYQ49oLRBbco_ysGRNTm3hKveY0gkVEeoByBN88ka6S-AMO/s1600/ZachMikeLeahAlice.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">October 2008<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>HERE is the first blog I wrote about our first encounter</b></span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>October 29, 2007 -</b> This weekend I met someone really amazing. His name is Zachary DeRidder.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Zach competed in several triathalons, 5K Races and rode 100 miles on his bike this summer.</span></i></span><br />
<ul style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://www.blogblog.com/scribe/list_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.3em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; line-height: 1.5em; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.6em 17px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Do I find this amazing because these kind of athletic endeavors are uncommon? <strong>Yes.</strong></i></span></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://www.blogblog.com/scribe/list_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.3em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; line-height: 1.5em; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.6em 17px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Am I slightly in awe of that kind of athletic ambition? <strong>That's a given.</strong></i></span></li>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When I tell you that Zach competed in these feats of strength and endurance all while undergoing treatment for cancer, you might sit back in awe yourself. </span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He has a rare form of liver cancer called fibro lamellar variant liver cancer.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It's started from a random email from someone I've been 'hassling' to join our building group of young adult survivors who thought Zach would be a better candidate than he. </span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I followed it up with an email to Zach, one that was never returned. Something in my gut told me there was something besides ordinary procrastination that led to this unanswered email.<br /><br /> So I did what we do these days- I googled. I found a website, read through it and found an email from someone connected to this young man's story. I casually sent an email to his friend, Michael.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Apparently Zach had other things to attend to...like the fight of his life. I would have expected no more than a vague summary when I got an email back from Michael. Strangers don't really need to know the whole story, right? Certainly, I never expected Michael to invite me to go to the hospital to meet Zach. <br />So that's just what I did. </span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Zach, his friend Michael and I chatted from chairs in the lobby of his hopsital floor. Through pain he's still smiling and he still has hope that he will be back on his bike.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He has called this floor home for more than a month. I watched him waved down a passing doctor and openly chat with her about the next steps in his treatment. He joked and pointed longingly at the candy bars in the vending machine. He's fighting with everything he has...and hasn't forgotten his passion or what he sees for himself beyond the walls of the hospital. His dreams are just beginning to take shape and </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.zhope.org" style="color: #956839; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">ZHope</a><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, or</span><a href="http://www.zhope.org/" style="color: #956839; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">http://www.zhope.org/</a><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, the foundation that his friends set up to honor him is just getting off the ground.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Talking to Zach, you get the idea that he sees this cancer as just a road block. With an attitude and a vision like his you'd never think he was facing incredible odds just in his own survival.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">While talking to him about the group I was forming and </span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">he got an incredible light in his eyes. He started talking about activities we should do in our group when he is well.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Could we go camping as a group...you know stuff like that?</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> he asked.</span><br style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He seemed amazed that other young adult cancer survivors were uniting in such a way. You see Zach hasn't had access to a computer for a while and hadn't really been looking for others. As a matter of fact, months ago while he could have searched the internet for support for young adults with cancer, he was way too busy...training like a machine. He was too busy defying the odds. He still is. Tomorrow's plans are still there.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That was more than seven years ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yes,we indeed took a picture that fall day in a hospital lobby in 2007. I didn't have my camera but it was on Zach's camera. Truthfully, I remember feeling sad because I would never see the picture. I still never have seen that picture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I thought surely Zach would die before we'd get to snap another moment together. I had never seen someone that thin and ravaged. I had never seen someone so young and so close to death. Most people never have and there's a reason. In the final stages of life most people hunker down and stay in the safe huddle of those they love. Inviting anyone knew into that life circle is not the typical priority of a dying person. Zach defied that rule with an understanding that was both youthful and wise beyond his then 23 years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The reality is, as fate would have it, we had many pictures together after that first. I treasure them. Zach DeRidder became a part of my life and even in death he's still a part of my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Zach DeRidder died 416 days after that first meeting - long enough to etch his way into my heart. If Mitch Albom's fictional account of momentous life intersection plays out like it does in his book, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Zach is one of those big 5 I will see when my time ends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Six years ago today Zach left this earth. I was in Long Island visiting my best friend for the Martin Luther King Day weekend. I remember taking the call in the spare bedroom where I was staying - blotting my face of tears, trying to collect myself enough to go back and join her. I knew then that I would never forget him.<br /><br />I know years later I will still recall my friendship with Zach as one of the most influential parts of my human life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />He taught me to seize meaningful opportunities no matter what others caution you against. Caution sometimes keeps you from living. It keeps you safe but many times it imprisons you in ways you later regret. Zach made that message clear to me. He looked me in the eye and told it to me straight. His message was direct and unabashed. He needed to say it to me and he didn't tread lightly. He told me I lived too safe and played by too many rules.<br /><br />No regrets for Zach - he didn't have time.<br /><br />Zach, I am married now and in some ways my life has changed wildly. Some of them I owe to you. I lived in a safe zone...and it was your advice that allowed me to take chances.<br /><br />Because of this, I'll probably be forever thanking you because you saw the fear and hesitation I lived with - I was so different from you in that way. <br />Thank you Zach for helping me grow.<br /><br />Six years ago today a really special person left us...and I know we will meet again when I'm done here. I miss you Z-Man.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GHaruxpVwg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GHaruxpVwg</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-55901318788020505212014-12-10T19:56:00.001-05:002014-12-10T19:56:23.586-05:00A Century Ago<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I woke up today with a sad glint of recollection. Today, December 10th would have been my grandma's 100th birthday. It occurs to me that since her death in 2010, so much has happened that we haven't gotten to share with her.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's funny how the passage of time can escape us until a commemorative date like today appears. I miss her on so many days - particularly on those she would have told me how proud she was of me and how much she loved me with a hug and perhaps a tear or two. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wPiOqzY2fHz2F4esr3uDiPMy_bKW49Dan193EQgGg_Exh6_gJux-ecnO1Azrb-sSIADLWWykSKN9vOb4A-Bhge9x63Q1KcOcz6lEiWZiJUNtOSxAkPOgbJjjGojbX0Ofw-F82b4vnHkd/s1600/photo-72.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wPiOqzY2fHz2F4esr3uDiPMy_bKW49Dan193EQgGg_Exh6_gJux-ecnO1Azrb-sSIADLWWykSKN9vOb4A-Bhge9x63Q1KcOcz6lEiWZiJUNtOSxAkPOgbJjjGojbX0Ofw-F82b4vnHkd/s1600/photo-72.JPG" height="400" width="293" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I thought of her the day <a href="http://www.lifesandwiches.blogspot.com/2014/10/they-said-it-goes-by-in-flashit-does.html" target="_blank">I got married</a> and imagined how much she would have loved her grandson-in-law. I thought of her the day <a href="http://www.lifesandwiches.blogspot.com/2014/02/marys-little-lamb.html" target="_blank">my sister's beautiful baby girl </a>Rachel Valerie was born, knowing how much she would have loved having her name in my niece's middle name. I know she would have marveled and sighed at the advances made in medicine in Rachel's time. She had always mourned for her own premature baby girl who today would have surely survived.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There was no question, my grandma came of age in a time of incredible hardship. She was the first of her parents' five children to be born in the United States. At four years old she lost her dad and the family had to work to keep the family farm learn to survive without him. Through it all she taught us all so much about love compassion, family, service and loyalty.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Grandma, I miss you and remember you today with so much love in my heart.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Those of you reading this: if you are lucky enough to have a grandparent who is living, I have some advice.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- See your life as a way of celebrating your grandparents. The pride they experience in their grandchildren means more than you might ever know.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- Remember to spend time hearing stories. Someday those stories will be worth more than you can even imagine.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- Savor those little moments. In the grand scheme of life, those little moments are big. If we don't slow down enough, we miss them. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>It's often the very young or the very old that truly understand this philosophy.</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Happy 100th Birthday to my Grandma, Godlieve Valerie Duxbury. You are never forgotten.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-65749148669951375342014-10-20T20:27:00.004-04:002014-10-20T20:52:49.148-04:00They said it goes by in a flash...it does!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Let's face it...when I started this blog more than 7 years ago I never thought I would be entering a blog post about my wedding day. (I write this almost 2 months later...sorry for the delay...life happened.)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When I started blogging back then it was as a cynical single girl who couldn't say she'd been jaded by love by any means, but she couldn't have said she'd been knocked over by its force in the way that songs seem to speak of. No one had entered my life in a way that made me shed that cynical layer... that is, until I met Patrick. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On August 22nd I married the man who changed my life and the day passed by in a flash. At least, in hindsight it seems that's how fast the day way went by. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was definitely forewarned by many brides who knew the drill. For a day you spend so much time planning, it sure has a way of flying by when it finally arrives. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I will never forget how blessed I felt on that day. Happy tears and so many memories with so many wonderful family and friends who joined us. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Something old</b>- The handkerchief I carried was trimmed with lace my great grandmother (a lacemaker in Belgium) made.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7lAXUMlyQcWLmnPKnmkW36LrpcPZiRHveNz0i_TLt3RM_h7k4YdTJ_NqLWI__h7Ypl3DwJCIBbOOkkb1rwFsHdcwy6HI9uwsihI9kdw3rWKM6pLwhYFIsa4iggGcGcJcXx_UMJl2-AzX/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-12-55-51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7lAXUMlyQcWLmnPKnmkW36LrpcPZiRHveNz0i_TLt3RM_h7k4YdTJ_NqLWI__h7Ypl3DwJCIBbOOkkb1rwFsHdcwy6HI9uwsihI9kdw3rWKM6pLwhYFIsa4iggGcGcJcXx_UMJl2-AzX/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-12-55-51.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlw47ENuA6BUfEctzhfG1FggR-zLMruXsV7XXYbVL6cpg1l_XC6BI1xf85uWouBNO4BgtZY6R6NlO06yf_4lohgN5qXK-7S7q28iIrzM2_1Pua1kFuW_CMEClVvYnn7fbRV01_CAZy5N36/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-13-08-39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlw47ENuA6BUfEctzhfG1FggR-zLMruXsV7XXYbVL6cpg1l_XC6BI1xf85uWouBNO4BgtZY6R6NlO06yf_4lohgN5qXK-7S7q28iIrzM2_1Pua1kFuW_CMEClVvYnn7fbRV01_CAZy5N36/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-13-08-39.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Something new- </b>I felt blessed in so many ways that day, but especially with regard to something fresh and new. My flowers were a gift from a family friend, Dawn who is an incredibly talented florist. When she heard I was cutting corners in my flowers and planning with a small budget she told me that she wanted to give me a special gift -my flowers. It's a gift I can't begin to ever thank her adequately enough for.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRZ0RiUQHDWfm4tJHzU_fgHyCuYRa8wW3LOpko0SppWLP3ItV_I8HQTipNkh-Rl6f206a5jjDxj4xCzP2nm8FayoChghB1NefOxVAtyndJyyqnIegZcHE_pKXzN1qhArRxg2V1eQmuJiKd/s1600/IMG_2448.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRZ0RiUQHDWfm4tJHzU_fgHyCuYRa8wW3LOpko0SppWLP3ItV_I8HQTipNkh-Rl6f206a5jjDxj4xCzP2nm8FayoChghB1NefOxVAtyndJyyqnIegZcHE_pKXzN1qhArRxg2V1eQmuJiKd/s1600/IMG_2448.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Something borrowed- </b></span>I am lucky to have many friends with great taste. I borrowed my veil from my friend Jennifer. As it so happens, Jennifer is also the friend who introduced me to Patrick. It saved me some serious cash and it matched really well with my dress- lace trim and all!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ijCq1W2CxNnRJHT8Bldlpx_4PLDxa4D-MGYbOe8K-iHawqg4XWznZML24KOCrU5bf8Tn9Xi6wohfclZ_BD1vC3bcIge-YXjRj9waeHgRZlvt5i4qiVEKuAMWeeDHGHeyYOCQdEnGNkSM/s1600/photo-70.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ijCq1W2CxNnRJHT8Bldlpx_4PLDxa4D-MGYbOe8K-iHawqg4XWznZML24KOCrU5bf8Tn9Xi6wohfclZ_BD1vC3bcIge-YXjRj9waeHgRZlvt5i4qiVEKuAMWeeDHGHeyYOCQdEnGNkSM/s1600/photo-70.JPG" height="400" width="337" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Something blue- </b>This was my wedding gift from Patrick, a blue topaz necklace. Not bad, for a girl who before her engagement ring still saw Claire's Accessories in the mall as her go-to jewelry stop!</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE02taNC8TvUUPen9T21od4QY4fgddaY3CDV5zg7hzmrJNvu7kNT7NSx6r09P5_gkIRVyDQ7Hm0DnrLSo4sJf4AVo-Ao6thHrgMmwraSSFeCRuQKS7BWOHgcepI3M-ePdrZ4Wp18oXxa3I/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-13-57-08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE02taNC8TvUUPen9T21od4QY4fgddaY3CDV5zg7hzmrJNvu7kNT7NSx6r09P5_gkIRVyDQ7Hm0DnrLSo4sJf4AVo-Ao6thHrgMmwraSSFeCRuQKS7BWOHgcepI3M-ePdrZ4Wp18oXxa3I/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-13-57-08.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span></td></tr>
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I was so excited when I opened the necklace and put it on for the first time. Actually, the gift was not a surprise...and neither was the watch I gave Patrick. Truth be told, I had to tell Patrick a couple times to put <i>his gift</i> back in the box until he wore it on our wedding day.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEGaNDHA8Zv-QEFJmpK1OEObYrQe9UcznPI0XJha8LldY4uavs55sw2aZ5qn6BgNJe3WB1XWdxBpe89vlyc3XgqmzyiZVg3SqeQJtBj0sWzLd5AL_CXQmHdQJjIl43a-hVic3eGMYn15T/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-14-00-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEGaNDHA8Zv-QEFJmpK1OEObYrQe9UcznPI0XJha8LldY4uavs55sw2aZ5qn6BgNJe3WB1XWdxBpe89vlyc3XgqmzyiZVg3SqeQJtBj0sWzLd5AL_CXQmHdQJjIl43a-hVic3eGMYn15T/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-14-00-14.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All my ladies got ready at my sister's house...Do not be fooled- we were only this put-together for all of 15 minutes before leaving for the church!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUrari0Rh_FHMgpvKNuAn2Cp3AwfG0zapAWQKd7bKyKbnWii6vcHUAaIPe9IsB0Wlom0kmVBnUpdVnEEYTQOWRcjOgV8YKP58PXqdig8WhBmnxS4thAh45FKKAS9sxT0Io_u8x9f6wPae/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-14-05-24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUrari0Rh_FHMgpvKNuAn2Cp3AwfG0zapAWQKd7bKyKbnWii6vcHUAaIPe9IsB0Wlom0kmVBnUpdVnEEYTQOWRcjOgV8YKP58PXqdig8WhBmnxS4thAh45FKKAS9sxT0Io_u8x9f6wPae/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-14-05-24.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span></td></tr>
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And I couldn't forget a picture with my favorite girl, Lucy...the dog who got me through my second bout with cancer.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4mgsQ7YnxwR6Fyj2S2n9XZko15ezGXe8nSb8QiP9Vi1o-fvLLddKi31fOGMet3xVjr_oEQV8y5TBqd-Vq0E5eoDdKWqBEHj6CdC2lff8etDJNQ3Z0Zeoazb2sp9lAqY5XnIxj5OF00dvV/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-15-06-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4mgsQ7YnxwR6Fyj2S2n9XZko15ezGXe8nSb8QiP9Vi1o-fvLLddKi31fOGMet3xVjr_oEQV8y5TBqd-Vq0E5eoDdKWqBEHj6CdC2lff8etDJNQ3Z0Zeoazb2sp9lAqY5XnIxj5OF00dvV/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-15-06-15.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> My dad has been asking me for weeks to write this blog- to describe what I was feeling that day. He's of course one of my blog's most devoted readers. </span></div>
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When I look back on this picture I can't help but think of what I felt in that moment. I could only try to absorb what my parents were feeling as we readied for that day- my dad particularly. As my dad linked my arm, I could feel somehow that this long walk (yet all-too quick) down the aisle was as surreal as any moment I'd known before. Yet, at the same time I felt complete clarity with all of the emotions that had been swirling up until that point. All the nerves I had been running around with all day settled.</div>
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All that time worrying and scurrying shifted into a clearer vision. I looked down at the pews ahead filled with some of the most important people in my life and the end of them was the man about to become my husband.</div>
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I can't say that I'd ever been sure I would experience this moment until I was there, in my own skin. Looking out and realizing that this day was really here, I couldn't help but squeeze my dad's arm and smile at him.<br />
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There aren't many moments like that so you have to just pray it will all stay locked in memory forever.<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">So many memories to lock into my mental scapbook. I'm thankful that there we have some incredible images to help keep those memories. Here are just a few of the wonderful pictures captured by the amazing team of Steve and Mick at Preferred Photography. We just loved having them with us every step of the way!</span></i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy7I9WJdoai-QsurUCS2ZIKRDsXTaAQU8-sNBXGZmjqwozK8-lxhomummWbHfST0WKo6_hwhc4wbwuIM2Uo-eD-F3Pglco26kOvbZclADyIAVs1e7Jsf5J43FcLM8ppDIgTTkI3o2b0qOk/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-21-35-27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy7I9WJdoai-QsurUCS2ZIKRDsXTaAQU8-sNBXGZmjqwozK8-lxhomummWbHfST0WKo6_hwhc4wbwuIM2Uo-eD-F3Pglco26kOvbZclADyIAVs1e7Jsf5J43FcLM8ppDIgTTkI3o2b0qOk/s640/Shearer_Noonan-21-35-27.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22tDhTpySBKSgB5XFgUELFTqQUz14kPEmBScQQTwMnB-nbPgoNN-OCoe4_lmg10QWU_UuBDP5U8h-VJzQ7kM7a5iSzSEiZm7xHU5559O8h2s8RkfB1XRf2J9AcIkWl_m_hbw6OE3v_HdD/s1600/Shearer_Noonan-23-07-08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22tDhTpySBKSgB5XFgUELFTqQUz14kPEmBScQQTwMnB-nbPgoNN-OCoe4_lmg10QWU_UuBDP5U8h-VJzQ7kM7a5iSzSEiZm7xHU5559O8h2s8RkfB1XRf2J9AcIkWl_m_hbw6OE3v_HdD/s640/Shearer_Noonan-23-07-08.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Steve Craddock - Preferred Photography</span></i></td></tr>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-32464336571360437242014-06-02T07:42:00.002-04:002014-06-02T07:53:50.493-04:00Lawn seat culture <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This past weekend Patrick and I attempted to check an item off our bucket list- seeing Dave Matthews live. Let's just say it was a time we will remember likely for the rest of our lives - and not in a good way. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Let me explain. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Saving for our wedding, we didn't have the money to shell out for the 'good seats' so we selected a pair of lawn seats which weren't cheap mind you. I've taken the lawn plenty a time and though view might be less than perfect it's always been enjoyable and great just to hear the music.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Our experience Saturday night at Saratoga Performing Arts Center was beyond horrible. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What we suffered through began with a striking omen. The second we opened our car door into a parkling lot full of pre-gamers we heard the quote that summed up the fanbase we saw. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Everything I do is to the extreme," shouted a flexing muscle boy to the left of our car. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Along the 1/2 mile walk to the venue we saw a collection of drunken people strewn about...one girl sat on the ground gazing up at cops assessing her condition. "Oh yeah, I'm okay now," she said unconvincingly. She was not in the minority. Several people staggered in stupor. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The concert was an hour away from start time and most of the crowd entering seemed totally unprepared to tie their own shoes- let alone sit through a concert. We got there with plenty of time to select a spot on the hill to put our blanket on. We were sure that once the music started all would be well and this tangled cluster of frat house wannabes would settle down to enjoy what they came to see. Dave Matthews. Surely this pre-gaming would give way to allow the real show to be heard. Wrong.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After waiting a half hour for the music Dave at last took the stage. Having no opener, this was the show... the main act. Yet, the supposed fans wouldn't shut up enough to hear it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I barely heard anything from the band we came to see. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All around us the "fans" talked to each other as if they weren't even at a concert- because they weren't. The lawn was a thick throng of people so disconnected from what was happening they appeared misplaced in space and time. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Who pays actual money to go to a concert and ignore the artist? And this wasn't one random couple that others had to shush.This was everyone around us. All we heard was crowd murmur. Patrick and I could barely hear the strains of the song we would later find out online was Bartender. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>That's exactly the role Dave Matthews was playing...at least to this lawn crowd. </i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They had come only to drink, not to listen. But their bartender should have cut them off and closed out the tab.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If there was anyone there actually there to hear the music they were drowned out by those who had downed a six pack pre-game and had become more interested in becoming a part of the show, the one we had not paid to see.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Everywhere we looked fans were talking amongst themselves during the first song...hooping and hollering out of turn. Then the second song. Were they unaware the concert had actually begun? By the second song the crowd chatter had become even worse. By the third song we were at a level of despair that needed correction. We picked up our blanket and walked away.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In one last attempt to find a place to hear the concert we moved ourselves entirely away from the center of the lawn and found a nice quiet spot by a tree. We spread out our blanket again, hopeful. It wasn't even ten minutes before Patrick stood up in disgust. Unbeknownst to me a woman had crouched down, dropped trow and begun to urinate right on the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">side of the tree I was leaning against. We immediately packed up and left.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that people drink at concerts. I've been to many. I've seen the crowd enjoy the show from their cheap seats. I've heard the music fill a grassy hill and settle over the crowd who was tuned in and loving it. This was not that experience. I've just never seen such a disorderly mess of people who seemed to be completely disengaged from the entertainment and incapable of behaving like rationale human beings.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sad. </span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-68921606554000707862014-03-20T03:09:00.002-04:002014-03-20T03:09:10.768-04:00A feisty patient<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dear Little Rachel,</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some day when you are older I am going to tell you how brave your mama is. I am going to tell you how strong I've had to see her be when she didn't think it was in her. I know so clearly that you are her daughter because 'feisty' is just what you are. In all of nature's unfairness - to be given the hand you were dealt before your tiny little lungs drew breath - you somehow found a way to be here with us. And that I know is not a universal quirk - it is a solid and steady indomitable will...just like your mama. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some day when you are older I will tell you how I watched your mama stay calm and peaceful for you as you turned from perky pink to clamshell grey, to a most horrible oyster blue in her arms. Your mama listened calmly to Lisa, the nurse as she talked her through how to coax your body back and nudge you back into the breath your brain and body are too young to get control of yet. There was palpable fear in the room and tears were streaming down your mama's face but she was focused on keeping herself calm to let you know you would be okay. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some day I hope I can tell you that your Mama and Daddy are two of the bravest parents I know...Here it is - only day 22 on earth- they have already had to dig down deep into their hearts and souls for you. Long before you made your entrance they had to summon up some courage that knew no carved-out path before them. When the rest of the world told them you should not or could not be here - they believed in miracles. But little Rachel it is you who are showing them the way. I watched you endure these moments yesterday- in one long untaken breath - a whisper of agony for us all in the room. Agony for your mom and I - and even for your very wise nurse Lisa - who told me as we sat in the chairs together talking side by side that she has hard moments in her job like these. It touches her soul to watch this bewildering terror of moms who see their children fight for these breaths.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I watched all of this that happened with you and saw you show US all how to breathe calm again. How, you say?...You made us laugh when we needed to take that breath of exhale again.Ten minutes after you stunned us to tears and pindrop silence, you stretched out like a pin-up girl in your crib and smiled. And minutes after your next terrifying 'event' you blew a giant bubble. I was able to take a picture...and I will show you. And oh, yeah your feeding tube upgrade - that was all you - 'removed by patient.' Feisty indeed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, little Rachel you are tough and some day I am going to tell you when you can really understand. Some day I am going to tell you how as scary as that was for me today, to see you and your mama endure these unfathomable moments...you showed me how to be even braver than I thought I could be. And as we sat together quiet in that chair - just you and I- and a lot of beeping noises, I felt my heart grow too. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love you, my niece, little Rachel and you don't know this, but you remind me of someone I know and love very much. She's the person who held my hand when I needed it so many times. So I wanted to hold hers today. And yours, little Rachel.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You are your mother's daughter.</span><br />
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Love Auntie Leah<br />
Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-67909420915358761842014-03-19T06:01:00.002-04:002014-03-19T09:09:54.456-04:00A 'good journey' of promise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There is nothing to put age on you like returning to the former stomping grounds of your college campus...and at last, realize you can no longer pass - even by a longshot- for an undergrad student. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Trust me, I tried yesterday- sneaking back to my old dorm. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now I am an officially seen as a card-carrying alum- might as well face it. With all affection and reverence, of course.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yesterday as I gave the keynote speech at the <a href="http://www.sbu.edu/about-sbu/news-events/latest-news/news-release/2014/03/12/st.-bonaventure-senior-loney-named-2014-woman-of-promise" target="_blank">2014 Woman of Promise awards,</a> I realized how far I have come since the time I sat as a petrified freshman in that same auditorium in which I was now taking the podium. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I looked up in the audience and saw "Denny", the professor who changed my life- forcing me to stop, plow forward and <i>believe </i>a four year college education was not only doable, but within my reach. He had pulled my transcript for our first meeting scratched his chin and said "18 credit hours...18 credit hours," he repeated. "18 credit hours of college level work in high school...That's impressive." </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> For a young woman whose 'then-life' had been filled with nothing but chronic illness and high school teachers who graded and returned my assignments with little other than casual obligation, someone who had been written me off as the 'sick-kid' or the school phobic, this was a pivotal and monumental idea. <i>Someone could be impressed by me?</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The kid who was perhaps doomed to a life of scrambling just to strive for mediocrity and normalcy. <i>How could I ever impress anyone? </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was happily and joyously wrong.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Whether Denny's exact four words were <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">"I-believe-in-you"</span></i> or not...it was the clear and solid message to an 18-year-old who had spent all but brief flashes of her high school career between being bed-ridden or wandering through a constant fog of cognitive dysfunction from an illness no-one really could demystify.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I kept looking at him, remembering where I was then...and how long it took me to get from there (knees knocking in a freshman 101 class) to delivering a keynote before the journalism school. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I told the crowd of students that those four words changed my world. T<i>hey did. </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Though Denny wasn't the only voice at St. Bonaventure who told me I could do it...his was the most constant. He was my advisor. His voice was a stern but loving echo in that time, one fraught with fear and frequent trips home to recover from pneumonia or bugs I picked up at school and I couldn't fight off like the 'average', 'normal' and 'healthy' kids who took for granted their God-given immune systems and happily washed the weekend down with shots... simply exercising a rite of passage. I didn't have the ability to exercise the freedoms of casual abandon because I was fighting to keep my grasp on as close to normal of a college experience as possible. Denny knew if I was out of class it was not because I was recovering from a hangover. He knew my story. He knew I would always get my work done...<b>or die trying.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The woman for whom this Woman of Promise award is named, Dr. Mary Hamilton, also held<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"> a number of my fondest memories at St. Bonaventure. During my senior year Dr. Hamilton was my senior capstone advisor- in the dark ages when the 'hottest technology' for storing large filed documents existed on giant drives you could barely fit in your backpack - and that last semester of school I lost my entire senior capstone project. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">I had already completed most of it when the drive malfunctioned and warped the entire document, rendering it utterly useless.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">My project was a 40 page retrospective yearbook on the history of the <a href="http://www.sbu.edu/academics/schools/journalism-and-mass-communications/graduate-degrees/ma-integrated-marketing-communications/study-abroad-at-oxford" target="_blank">Francis E. Kelley Oxford program</a> of which I had just returned from as a student that previous summer. I had all but one of my articles in hard copy so that was easily retyped but the design work and the hours in the lab and designing and finagling were gone. Scanned pictures- gone. Hours of work and design - lost. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">Dr Hamilton was my advisor for this project and she encouraged me as I rebuilt the document. Doing everything but sleeping in the yearbook office using its high-end software program- the one I could not afford to purchase for my dorm computer. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">I began to wish I had taken the research paper route instead. That project went through numerous and careful revisions, but when I put that finished yearbook on Dr. Hamilton's desk- she smiled from ear to ear. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><i>These </i>are the people you never forget. These were my rainbows in the clouds. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">When you remember the people in your life who made you better, you remember not their words, but how they made you <b><i>feel</i>.</b> And those feelings are transformative. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">They can help you wade through the thick waters of disappointment or disillusionment when someone knocks you down. Perhaps like many of us, I've had my fair share of those who have played this <i>other</i> unfortunate role in my life. Yet, coming back to campus and having a few of these special heroes embrace me was like a warm blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOJEzoOiJ12PyR2ClcvhkOD0BNv7AKiokD8cPU2aYX1hZJxRQr9MWXrg1QvGFyvjRhC4EM6hPN_Isks8I62Q6oT7qQ0tUTBxDvCK-loB9U1XwibSZWZPe2rz_6uF0h9Idw_HEQfunZNj2/s1600/Rockin+women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOJEzoOiJ12PyR2ClcvhkOD0BNv7AKiokD8cPU2aYX1hZJxRQr9MWXrg1QvGFyvjRhC4EM6hPN_Isks8I62Q6oT7qQ0tUTBxDvCK-loB9U1XwibSZWZPe2rz_6uF0h9Idw_HEQfunZNj2/s1600/Rockin+women.jpg" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">I had the good fortune to help present the Dr. Mary Hamilton Woman of Promise award (alongside Dr. Hamilton) to a very special young woman named Makeda Loney. Remember that name because she is going to do incredible things- I know this.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">As she climbed the stairs to the stage I couldn't help but hug her before even going in for a handshake. I had read her story and in between the lines of her biography I sorted out the story of someone who much like me had challenges to overcome when she first stepped on campus. No doubt, she fought through them in a way that led her to be wholly worthy of being honored yesterday. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">"Are you nervous," I asked. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">"YES", Makeda answered back without hesitation.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">As she visibly fought through the nerves of preparing her acceptance speech my whole life came full-circle with the sound of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">Patrick's voice. My fiance who had been quietly smiling and playing the supportive role all day interjected with a smile.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"Makeda, can I give you some advice?," he said</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"Yes," Makeda answered.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"When you are talking up there...when you are speaking and you see our faces...you just have to know that everyone in that audience is on your side."</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">This journalism major is also steps away from being a theater minor. Patrick, an actor was just the person to give these words of advice. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">I smiled with pride. Full circle indeed. Here was my husband to be, the man who had successfully conquered his own childhood fears of stage fright, giving this special young lady some words of encouragement. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">This is why life is good. This is why you should never give up. We all have moments where we doubt ourselves and our abilities...we all have moments where someone else judges us unfairly and steals our joy. Yet, we have to keep on keepin' on and looking for those rainbows in the clouds along the way. When we find them- we have to work extra hard to make those 'I-believe-in-you' voices louder </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">louder than those voices</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"> that discouraged us.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">Yet, when we are able to take that power and give it back to someone else...then we have become aware of the fullness of our humanity. It is the power of life. It is the power of love. It is the power of promise.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQteQ_ORozrXUwAxdlR8Yq3USX1wCnqhgbhfO3VbUe8ifwHc_A1PZaDc18wprZARPAav7pwdffw9bPR0vVTYkcf9KVl2LmTMWvU64uYw8s_h7bezseHRSUv9T0MbzX0gY6wyS5KE1PhBG/s1600/Makeda_Fotor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQteQ_ORozrXUwAxdlR8Yq3USX1wCnqhgbhfO3VbUe8ifwHc_A1PZaDc18wprZARPAav7pwdffw9bPR0vVTYkcf9KVl2LmTMWvU64uYw8s_h7bezseHRSUv9T0MbzX0gY6wyS5KE1PhBG/s1600/Makeda_Fotor.jpg" height="377" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">With Makeda, truly a woman of promise</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I told Makeda in my speech that there are 3 things to keep in mind about being a woman of promise. Perspective, perseverance and purpose. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Perspective- to see where she started, and where she is now.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Perseverance- to see how she can keep going in tough times.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Purpose- to know who she is fully and know what drives her.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Those are things we can all remember when we believe in our own promise. Life will never ever be easy - but it sure will be worth it.</span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-17764693714454350622014-03-07T05:55:00.001-05:002014-03-07T05:55:17.551-05:00Zen with sneakers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvaQRQoMJ-vcx8syVyxLsmBD_FUk81iqAnhoMZNKagt6v-LkRx9KcErdQpYuKZfB46aaDOXYFuRalfmBqSHmVZXAsxw0pxNczfWIxotY8klKY2rqOqQAKZNpTv9A6zuIxzNGGRj-pOFjN3/s1600/100_0461.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvaQRQoMJ-vcx8syVyxLsmBD_FUk81iqAnhoMZNKagt6v-LkRx9KcErdQpYuKZfB46aaDOXYFuRalfmBqSHmVZXAsxw0pxNczfWIxotY8klKY2rqOqQAKZNpTv9A6zuIxzNGGRj-pOFjN3/s1600/100_0461.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In spring 2010</td></tr>
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I have a confession. Without realizing it over the last year I've slipped into somewhat of a fitness slump.<br />
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By the time Patrick came home a month ago and nudged me to accompany him on visits to the gym, I realized exercise was the thing I had been chopping off my list consistently when there was any time crunch. Fatigue has also played a role in this...<br />
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With the way my life is set up now, I didn't really even realize how slowly and yet dramatically this pulling away from exercise has impacted me.<br />
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There are lots of ways to find spirituality. I'm not speaking about God necessarily. I don't do any of my praying during workouts. I'm speaking about a sense of calm and serenity- and an ease that everything is going to be okay.<i> Even if it isn't, everything will be okay. </i>A sense that somehow the things you have no control over don't have a hold on you and instead you can hold on them at bay. A sense that you can channel any negative messages or fears and turn them around.<br />
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Everyone needs a place to release and re-invite that message that 'everything will be okay'. That place for me over the last month has oddly enough been the gym.<br />
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For the last few weeks when I'm sweating it out on the eliptical, it's the one place I can't be reached on the phone or feel I need to attend to something else. I zone out completely and let the pure rush of solitude (in a crowded gym) wash over me. Here I have a very singular purpose and here there are<br />
no interruptions.<br />
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The spin class with the amazing Marti has become my zen. And Patrick's too. Even though we're pedaling beside each other in class - the experience is totally our own. Yesterday I entered the class carrying many worries in with me, but by the end of class they were unburdened and I felt that comforting hum that is peace.<br />
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In no way am I advocating abandoning religion for a gym membership. I just think it's time I regain a little sweat equity in the work that is just on me.Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-58908127782096425932014-03-01T11:19:00.003-05:002014-03-01T11:19:40.603-05:00Isn't she lovely?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek4wbh5_SqTLtZ07EPr6ViTbxEOQErBsi19zBoO6rADWlfxzFpaehdPBjL9s6rMiurL76GP1w5s4XYMJHaUjZqwYf3XIFBFquPNxCnTvL2_gD1B6QvN8CJUZGfHDLSejZFSOsBp8a1_-c/s1600/Aunt+Leah+loves+Rachel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek4wbh5_SqTLtZ07EPr6ViTbxEOQErBsi19zBoO6rADWlfxzFpaehdPBjL9s6rMiurL76GP1w5s4XYMJHaUjZqwYf3XIFBFquPNxCnTvL2_gD1B6QvN8CJUZGfHDLSejZFSOsBp8a1_-c/s1600/Aunt+Leah+loves+Rachel.jpg" height="400" width="370" /></a></div>
<br />Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-42245700934478018052014-02-27T07:26:00.003-05:002014-02-27T10:30:01.604-05:00Mary's little lamb<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tSY-GqdMTZvp5rUPubPrPp_9ekcBq09C4wHDr3F0M9gLuBSc2gLJo3MTbMsBo4Ly9tlCS5kufv8LGAoDNskWoFE39GvPEZvoLD_42kahm93DQG-ub5MiBzJu7d0xv1W58_jvab4e84iC/s1600/MarywithLeahfirstcommunion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tSY-GqdMTZvp5rUPubPrPp_9ekcBq09C4wHDr3F0M9gLuBSc2gLJo3MTbMsBo4Ly9tlCS5kufv8LGAoDNskWoFE39GvPEZvoLD_42kahm93DQG-ub5MiBzJu7d0xv1W58_jvab4e84iC/s1600/MarywithLeahfirstcommunion.jpg" height="200" width="156" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just 48 hours ago I got a tearful call from my mom. "Mary's water broke." Ready or not, baby Rachel was very likely coming and far too early for all of our liking. The fear in that call jarred me out of a sound sleep and the only thing I could do after I hung up was pray and struggle into a pair of jeans.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When your only sister faces a health crisis your heart beats faster as your brain treads on a momentary stabbing pain of <i>'if'</i> ...and it scares you to death. Then you rationalize and try to just move...and do something.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Both Mary and I have intimately known this fear before. Mine as she underwent a harrowing spinal surgery, hers, likely through various portions of my two bouts with cancer.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But<i> this</i> time around (and all along these three months prior) I've been terrified about the health and safety of <i><u>two</u></i> precious lives...my sister and her unborn baby Rachel.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkR3S5bV0YhpvszFcGl-UviX6ncmoXQCEKhc_k7wKV2tg2QORiOAdl5yypc5sHi4utKwupRcERVV2o3xAszIS0SnkS1icbbOGba0uNE7qVCupOQPe6Qmqt2UYedNQyWfdfwFgT-i9lVHKz/s1600/Christmas+dip+12-25-2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkR3S5bV0YhpvszFcGl-UviX6ncmoXQCEKhc_k7wKV2tg2QORiOAdl5yypc5sHi4utKwupRcERVV2o3xAszIS0SnkS1icbbOGba0uNE7qVCupOQPe6Qmqt2UYedNQyWfdfwFgT-i9lVHKz/s1600/Christmas+dip+12-25-2006.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just after Thanksgiving we learned that the baby Mary was carrying (who we had just learned was a girl) was in trouble.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Fluid was accumulating inside of her, threatening the development of her organs. We feared together as Mary and Karl learned the odds were not great. The terror they felt as they were given an option to terminate her pregnancy woke my family into a reality that once again, life can be as cruel as it is beautiful.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But somehow my remarkable sister and brother in law were given a gift- medical hope for an experimental inter-utero intervention. Faced with little other options they chose this sliver of hope...and they chose to try.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I watched my sister press on with courage and incredible love for this little girl who she and Karl wanted very much. Even though there was fear in her heart she kept her love and anticipation and her belief that this little life would make it. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We took Mary and Karl's lead and held the fear at bay and celebrated the hope they had been given that this little girl might have a shot. Many people didn't even know that the baby they were expecting had been dealt such a tough prognosis. That is because we kept up the celebration. We were waiting for a new life...just like any other family.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And Tuesday at lunchtime my brother in law texted me a picture of a cluster of nursing staff lifting a tiny little form into an incubator. My eyes filled with tears. The next text was "she is here and she is breathing on her own".</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Rachel Valerie Sieburg</span></i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">I am an aunt! Rachel is here and all of us love her to pieces. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">At just two pounds and 14 ounces, she might seem fragile and helpless, but I think we all know better. This little girl who might not have been here without faith and hope is already showing us she is ready to take on life with a feisty spirit.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">I looked at her last night in her incubator and recognized the visible etching of my sister's face. I see in Rachel the same rosy full lips from Mary's baby pictures. Karl, he's in there too, no question, but I am guided back to a time my childhood memory can't conjure. It's a time I am told of through family stories...a time when a little skipping girl (not even three) ran into a hospital room and presented a tiny rattle to her baby sister. That first gift would be one of many but that little girl never knew how much her baby sister would mean to her then. And certainly that little girl never had visions of another baby, three decades later that would mean just as much. A baby we were so aching to meet...hoping that she could find a way.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;">According to most translations of the meaning of the name Rachel, it means sheep. I thank God for watching over his little sheep...so we could have her here with us. But to me, her Aunt Leah, this tiny little miracle is a sweet little lamb.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-21982100882925877622013-10-26T04:46:00.001-04:002013-10-26T04:47:01.822-04:00Your mother was a 'amster<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In DC with Patrick Bruce Jordan (third from left) and Tom Wahl (far right)</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm engaged to King Arthur. <i>That's right...some day, some day I shall be Queen! </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">No, that's not quite right. But Patrick flew down to Sarasota this week to start rehearsals for Spamalot. It's directed by the incomparable Bruce Jordan who does comedy, farce and hilarity with crowd-pleasing precision.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am so incredibly proud of Patrick and can't wait to see him in it when I go down there at Thanksgiving time.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Since Patrick and I have been together I've discovered all the heart and soul that goes into in his craft and it's made me appreciate how much dedication goes into the entire spectrum of every actor's life. And if ever there was a production that was tailor-made for my guy, I have to say this one is the pick. I can't wait to see him prance around the stage in full Monty Python glory. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For every practical and understandable reason, I miss my fiance. Yet I delight each day with Patrick's new stories of his adventures fine tuning the role of King Arthur. Monty Python is simply whimsical non-sensical fun. Though he's more of the straight man in a cast of sillies...the whole world of Spamalot is the ultimate playground for an actor whose comedic chops just totally send me into snickering fits. <i>You must remember, before we ever met in person I laughed my butt off watching him fall and laugh like a hyena on stage.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last night I was treated to a little behind-the-scenes fun as we chatted on the phone. "Do you feel like reading my lines with me," he asked. My mouth dropped open.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Patrick has never before had me rehearse lines with him and he's always insisted that it was something he's just does better at solo.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But last night I read the role of the 'French Taunter'.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There's nothing quite as silly as reading back and forth to your fiance calling him an 'English bed wetter' and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">to go 'boil his bottom' </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">under the guise of a script, of course.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Patrick has always laughed at my faux accents. None of them are of the accuracy of a classically trained linguist. But with silly Monthy Python I could almost be passable...maybe. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm gonna try my French taunter out around town perhaps. Or maybe not.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I'll leave that to the professionals.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So proud of my guy. If you happen to be in or around Florida the show opens up in 3 weeks. <a href="http://www.floridastudiotheatre.org/show_shows.php?id=403" target="_blank">GO SEE it.</a> Yet, I wouldn't wait to buy tickets. According to Patrick the house is selling out fast. </span></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-42343883105684815522013-10-01T22:38:00.001-04:002013-10-01T22:39:47.473-04:00She lit the way in uncertaintyThe flow of tears yesterday was both a celebration and a mourning. Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of my first cancer diagnosis. It's a day I'll never forget.<br />
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In the nine years since I was first diagnosed I've felt tears fall for many reasons...but yesterday was a profound mix of gratitude and guilt. Gratitude for so many things...but a sense of profound sadness triggered by someone else's journey's end.<br />
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Yesterday I found out that a woman who was a tremendous resource to me during my darkest hours passed away just two weeks ago...from cancer. I didn't even get to say goodbye.<br />
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Coleen Jones was a classy woman. Her voice was instant comfort from the very first time her it came on the other end of the line in my call to the Western NY chapter of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. In 2006 when my whole world felt uprooted and shaken, Coleen provided comfort and hope. She helped guide me through several application processes and was always charming and sweet. I first met her at a support group that I felt totally out of place at - as the only twenty something in a room full of older ladies, golf buddies and retirees. I returned only when I knew Coleen would be there moderating.<br />
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Coleen became in many ways so much more than a service provider in my life. Her sincere interest in my life (the one beyond my disease) and her casual banter with that charming chuckle made calls with Coleen a delight.<br />
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In 2007 she nominated me as the Spokesperson for the Rochester Light the Night Walk. She gave me a huge hug when I walked off the stage that night. Our connections didn't end there...when we worked together on a cancer conference for young adults in Rochester in 2010. She told me how much she admired what I was doing in Rochester and never failed to make me feel truly special. I'm grateful that I always told her how much I appreciated her in return. I always reminded her how much of a difference she made to me during those days of complete chaos.<br />
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Remembering my cancerversary yesterday...I thought of her. I meant to find a way to call her yesterday- to schedule that lunch we'd meant to set up. Instead I found her obituary.<br />
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A true hero to so many cancer patients, Coleen herself became a patient when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she made it through...her disease returned. I wish I could say that I learned of her recurrence from that obituary, but I didn't. I learned of it after I called her work number a year ago, only to find she had resigned and soon after learned the reason why.<br />
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I had her cell number and texted her a message of support. We exchanged a few lines and I made a plan to set up a lunch the next time I was near Buffalo. But time got away. It never seemed to be the right time. Perhaps it's too short notice for her, I thought. Yesterday I felt a lump of regret in my throat for all that procrastinating.<br />
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Coleen was special to so many. I can be sure that I'm not the only patient who felt the golden touch of her care and kindness. In the past nine years I have survived two different cancers. That was hard.<br />
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Saying goodbye to such wonderful people I've met on this journey is harder.<br />
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There are challenging bits of knowledge in the bright unfiltered light of survivorship. It's where the recognition of life's fragility meets our capacity to acknowledge it head on. It's a shattered faith in happy endings. Some run from it. It's easy to see why many desperately try to avoid the reminders of this finite and bitter reality. Damn right it's hard.<br />
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Yet people like Coleen should not be forgotten. And so if remembering her means knowing a little bit of life's unfairness... I chose to remember. Thank you Coleen.<br />
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<br />Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294033338066262897.post-59540497801433236312013-08-22T06:05:00.002-04:002013-08-22T06:05:45.917-04:00Someone to watch over me<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've been up all night hacking with a cough that won't let me sleep solidly through the night. And it is these times, the early morning hours when nothing can settle me back in that I am forced into the reminder of the toughest early morning hours throughout my life. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've been having a lot of nightmares this week because of this. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have to settle back and remind myself that life has changed. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sick Leah is no more. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But my subconscious is playing in the background while my body is fighting this really super un-fun bug</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you've spent as much time as I have in life not having a 'well body' it takes some doing to just know fully that all will be alright and somehow the immune system will do it's job. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Others in healthy bodies just don't take the time to contemplate or easily realize what that's like. When I meet young people struggling with the after affects of cancer- not the disease itself- but the constant visits to the doctor to fix another part that's wrong... they have shared with me the things that bug them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The comments and the 'sound advice' that others lob on them are exactly the same things others have said to me for years. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Can't you just find another doctor?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"But aren't you done with all this?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You really should try doing more positive thinking..."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I knew Patrick was the man for me the first weekend I visited him in Queens when I got sick. All the sudden dizzy nauseous. And not a drink on me. I was terrified to be sick (any kind of sick) in front of someone I was dating. I had too many occasions of episodic dating that ended badly because of this. Pre-cancer and pre-advocate days, I had learned in some ways to hide my ill self from any guy I dated.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was miraculous to me that night...Patrick seemed unfazed. He simply cuddled beside me on the couch and sat with me - no judgement, no prying laundry list of questions. He just held my hand. I had never, in all my life, known this kind of feeling. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A few months after this I learned what it was to play the other side of that role. While in Rochester readying for a reading he did at Geva he developed a horrible virus that sent him to urgent care. We spent our long weekend together on the couch...and I nursed him with herbs and potions I'd dabbled with through the years from the 'help-me-I'm sick' section of Lori's Natural Foods. He made it through his reading and collapsed back on the couch with me afterwards.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I realized for the first time the reciprocity of caregiving...and the importance of a lack of judgement. To just be there...and to be present. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last night when I was just feeling awful it was his voice on the other end of the line soothing me. Wishing he were there in person but doing everything he could to make me smile. Because of his work we spend a lot of time apart, but he is still my guardian and caregiver from afar.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> He sings anything I request. Lullabyes seem cheesy I know but they have been a cornerstone in a long distance relationship that works.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I never realized how good it would feel to be 'looked after'. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Someone to watch over me.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And guess what?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exactly a year from today I'm going to marry this guy. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW35AbGPVge9_gNOc546yDYTRC-tUB-w5H6F6jz0SoOKWn9m9w18XKiVEMx4SuqiYcFjDWU_v-HJwQ8B-h1OKZCts2uzVQpYV6a4FOon4gRYU_DdK23F5BzS4jPcz8PRuAfsekPgeeWpRL/s1600/IMG_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW35AbGPVge9_gNOc546yDYTRC-tUB-w5H6F6jz0SoOKWn9m9w18XKiVEMx4SuqiYcFjDWU_v-HJwQ8B-h1OKZCts2uzVQpYV6a4FOon4gRYU_DdK23F5BzS4jPcz8PRuAfsekPgeeWpRL/s400/IMG_0078.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Leah Shearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02424619847298871172noreply@blogger.com0