Lessons Learned

Suffice it stay, based on Kendayl's post, it's been a rough go of it lately. Seeing Grandma in pain was one of the worst experiences of my life. My grandmother was an amazingly strong woman. She loved life. She was opinionated, vivacious, and loving. She taught her grand-daughters to BURP! She was down right awesome.

I love her. I loved her. I will always love her. She taught me so much. One of those things is about the importance of my health and my body.

The not awesome side of grandma was that she didn't take care of herself. Because this has such a profound lesson - It's worth sharing. She was large. She ate Hardee's hotdogs and burgers and loved Taco Bell. I've never known her to be anything by over-weight. And at some point, her joints started to give out, she had pain and needed a cane. The cane then became her excuse to not move and not go out. Eventually, that turned in to depression (or rather what I'm assuming was depression). She gave up on life because she thought she couldn't change. At last weeks count, she was on more than 8 different medications for pain and various health problems.

In contrast, her older sister is 92 years old (10 years older than Grandma). Blanche still cuts her own grass. She walks a mile and half a day (she recently cut it down from 3 I believe). She is on ONE medication and that's for her bones. She's been on weight watchers for something like 25 years. When I joined WW two years ago, my instructor was actually coached by Blanche when she first started WW. She made a decision every day to put her health first and take care of herself. Seeing her at the funeral - watching her say goodbye to her last sibling threw that very lesson right in my face. There's a lot to learn from the people we love. Sometimes those lessons are learned not because of something they did but because of something they didn't do.

Some days I will chose to not care. But everyday I wake up, I get to make that choice and I get to live with the consequence - both good and bad.

That's my lesson.

So today I did my work out with Chalene and Turbo Fire. I even did Yoga. Brace yourself... I even touched my toes. I haven't done that but maybe twice in my life. Thank you Bethany Yoga!

So here's to grandma - for teaching me so much, for loving me more and for reminding me to love every day as if it were my last.