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Saturday, January 30, 2016

Angels without Wings

 

   "Friendship is not something you learn at school.  But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you haven't really learned anything."- Muhammad Ali

   There is nothing that makes me sadder than when I see students at the elementary school I work at all alone and friendless.  They stick out like a sore thumb because you mainly see groups of children in clusters but not these students.  I will always reach out to these kids but they do not want my approval and acceptance: they want their peer's.  Often I wonder whose fault is it-the loner for not attempting to reach out to their peers or their peers for not including them?  Regardless of what the answer is, I know that no one is meant to be alone in life.  As Mother Teresa once said, "Loneliness and the feeling of unwanted is the most terrible poverty."  You can be the richest person on this earth but if you have no friends, material wealth alone can't buy you happiness.

   That is why I think it is critical for parents to teach and cultivate their child's ability to socialize and interact with their peers at an early age.  Teach them to develop the skill of making friends.  For some children, it may be innate in them to make friends easily but for the rest, it may take time and effort to do so.  I have been blessed because I do make friends easily since I was a little girl.  My family used to say I was like a parrot because I could not stop talking.  I will talk to anyone just about anything even to perfect strangers.  Just recently, my daughter reprimanded me for talking to people sitting next to us at a local restaurant.  She said I embarrassed her :) But hey, I will never have a shortage of friends and friends are so important in all ages of life especially when life throws you a curveball.

   Since my diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, I have a huge support group of family and friends; my husband and my 3 children, my siblings (my parents are both no longer with us), my friends and co-workers and now, the many friends I have made this past year from the online support groups for PD.  I seriously do not know how I can cope with this disease without these people.  My family and friends show their love and support by listening to me, crying with me, helping me when I struggle, making me laugh and forgetting my troubles, and lifting me in prayers.  Recently when I posted on FB about not being able to open the cap of my gas pump and the list of things I can't do is getting longer, Karen sensed my frustration and immediately called me.  She started singing the song I wrote I Will Choose to me and said, "we cannot have our biggest cheerleader feeling this way, can we?"  You see, I have never met Karen before as she lives in West Virginia but we became friends recently through a PD online support group. Yet, Karen has been such a blessing to me in spite of our distances.  Even the bible stresses the importance of friendship.

   "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If one of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."    
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
   
   So, please do not do life alone; quantity is not important but quality of your friends is.  Choose your friends wisely and your life will be so much sweeter and richer.  Everyone needs and deserves a friend or friends to walk with them in happy times and especially in trying times.  Here are few of the many people who are my daily reminders I am never alone............
My family

Love the dance moms

My wonderful crazy fun neighbors and friends


Dance moms just want to have fun and sweetest group of women ever

Friends from work


My beautiful sisters; they're my biggest supporters and prayer warriors

Don't you love how I was photoshopped in? That's what I get for being late. LOL, love my coworkers!
  
A special thanks to all my new friends I have encountered from the online PD support groups.  You all are amazing in spite of dealing with one of the worst diseases out there. Your courage, strength, openness, authentic and genuine care for each other is beyond comprehension.  My prayer for us is that someday a cure will be found, and we can then throw the biggest party ever!!! What do you say, Parkies??

**to go to Gimme a Break, Humor Me and others, use computers only as cellphones do not allow you to navigate to these pages.