No Man Is a Failure Who Has Friends

"No man is a failure who has friends." -Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life

This year I've learned this to be extremely true. On December 30, 2013 as many know my Grandmother passed away, but that started an entire year of death, trials, heartbreak, successes, failures, and a long journey to find happiness in even those things that are so mundane to many. 

I suppose the best thing to call it is My wonderful life. 

There is something that since the time of Adam & Eve happens to each of us. That thing is known as death. It's something that we all know will one day happen to each of us, but we all are secretly afraid of it. Especially, if it's one of our loved ones that dies. Now, when death occurs we mostly want our friends and family there for us. And I've discovered that one of the worst possible things to say is "I'm sorry for your loss" Okay... you have sympathy for the fact that I just lost a loved one, but WHY do you say that? Now the description of Death from dictionary.com is rather interesting "the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of anorganism."

Death is something that has happened far too often throughout one's life. Just this year in my family there were 4 deaths, and just after Grandma Jeane's funeral last January my mom and I went to two more. All year long it's been this journey between life and death. I think after my Grandma passed away I went into a really long coma where I didn't want to talk to very many people about it. It kind of allowed me to help my family when my other Grandma passed away in August. However, nothing could have possibly prepared me for the death of my cat in October. Once her kidneys failed she decided to give up on life. She looked like she would pull through, but as much as a human can get a kidney transplant our animals cannot. 




Jeane Alice Mayhoffer passed away December 30, 2013. On December 31, 2013 I traveled to Colorado for a funeral. I heard once that how you spend New Year's Eve is how you will spend much of your year. I spent my New Year going to a funeral. Much of the year I experienced death. It was an enormous learning experience for me.



The next death that hit me pretty hard was my cat, Maria.She was having seizures and I didn't like seeing her suffer. Before Maria passed my Grandma Baron passed away in August. So, it was definitely a year of death for me, but the thing I noticed is there was usually a friend that I could talk to. I remember clearly when my cat passed away a dear friend of mine let me cry on his shoulder. There's something about our animals that just connects to our hearts, and only another animal lover can understand.



Truth: I wrote a longer blog about all of this but it got deleted.:( so, this is the shorter version.

End of story is just this. NO MAN IS A FAILURE WHO HAS FRIENDS. I love my friends. Especially those that probably don't realize just how much they've done so much for me.