More Than a Flyer

It’s that time of year again. Time to shake off the winter chill and get into the spring of things as we prepare for the 13^th Annual Spring Dance to benefit the Stephen M. O’Grady Foundation.

So reads the opening line of our first mailing of the year for the charitable foundation started in memory of my brother Stephen M. O’Grady, Salem Little League VP and Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salem, killed by a drunk driver in 1999 at the age of 30- those last few words rolling off my tongue with disturbing ease as I’ve repeated them hundreds if not thousands of times over the past 13 years.

Losing someone you love is painful.  Losing someone you love in a senseless tragedy at a young age is more than painful- it’s a reality check to everyone breathing to remind us that the only guarantee in our lives is the moment we are living in. It’s as much that shared pain and fear of our own mortality as it is the love for our son/brother/friend who left us behind that begs us to do something more. To do something to remind us that while he is gone we are still here,  trying to do something to leave a positive impact in this world for the honor of living another day.  To do anything to make sense of the fact that our lives go on, when one with so much promise was ended so violently, leaving us to wonder  the day after or even 13 years later, ‘why him and not me’.

It may seem straightforward to be on a small foundation board, and in a way I guess it is. You create a mailing list, ask for community support, tell your friends and family when the events are and hope they show up.  Behind the scenes you edit the website, update the Facebook page, and print flyers.  But there are those times when you stare at the computer screen and his photo stares back at you, and you wish you could ask him if this is what he would want, if it is making a difference, if he’ll really be waiting at Heaven’s gate to say “good job”. Then you wonder  if you’ve done enough good in the world to even make it to that gate, and if not can he at least try to stick his foot in it to hold it open. You stare closer and try to remember how tall he was next to you, what his voice sounded like, how big his hands were when he shook yours.  You take a moment to think of the cowlick that drove him nuts, how he was constantly trying to lose a few pounds, or how he never stopped liking spaghettios.

As the years go on the man and the foundation seem to drift apart as guests and scholarship recipients no longer know who Stephen was, and others who knew him their whole life join him in Heaven. You see the faces of those who have lost their own loved ones in the crowd, and want to tell them “this is for you too, for everyone who has lost someone they love”. You struggle with how much to remind people about the tragedy, without taking away the fun they are having.  You wonder what people want to hear, what they need to hear. You wonder where they were when they heard the news of the accident, and know you’ll never forget where you were.

You think of all of this, and then you relax a little bit when you hear a small voice inside of you that tells you “do what you need to do”, and you realize it really is that simple because you can’t imagine not doing it.

So you stuff the envelopes, sealing inside of them dreams of what should have been,  hope that one day you’ll find out if he still has a cowlick in Heaven, and gratitude for the honor of living another day.

End of the World As We Know It

I hate to be the one the break the news to you, but if you haven’t heard yet the world is ending on 12/21/12. If you don’t believe me, Google end of world and see what comes up. Apparently, the Mayans, Hopi Indians and Nostradamus knew what our fate would be long before we had a chance to mess things up pretty good on our own. Other apocalyptic dates have come and gone, but this one is the biggie. And it’s less than a year away.

As a child, I worried about the end of the world so much I had two recurring dreams that haunted me throughout my adolescence. 

In one, people are pouring out of their homes and being herded to the end of my street to find out if they are going to Heaven or Hell, accessible by an up and down escalator. When I saw my paperwork was sending me in the wrong direction, I swapped it with someone formerly destined for Heaven. Instead of feeling relief on my ride to the sky, I experienced overwhelming guilt and sadness about my actions, which would become my personal hell for eternity.   

In the other, people are running into the streets, randomly disappearing into thin air. I locked myself in a room with a stranger, thinking we were safe from whatever was happening, just as he disappeared with a poof. I’ve since learned this sounds like an event called The Rapture, where good people are called to Heaven at the end of the world, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. As I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what a rapture was at age ten, I’m hoping this was not an omen of things to come, as in my dream I was not one of the lucky disappearing ones.

There are different approaches to take when anticipating the end of the world. One is to throw caution to the wind, eat anything you want, stop exercising, and ring up the charge cards because no one is going to worry about collecting on your debt when the world is overrun with zombies.

Another approach is to believe salvation truly is possible, and we reap what we sow. While we’d all like to think that when and if Judgment Day comes we’d be on the fast track to Heaven, we still have about 10 months to make things right just in case.

For starters, drop all grudges. The weight of that anger drags you down more than the person you begrudge, so let it go and you’ll be that much lighter, making it easier to catch the updraft to up above. 

It might also help to stop chasing down the latest and greatest gadgets, because I’m pretty sure coveting anything – including the newest phone- is like tying a rock to your soul, and the goal this year is to travel light.

And it’s never too late to build your heavenly resume by giving back to others, because the more selfless we are, the lighter our egos become, allowing us to drift upwards like a balloon cut free from its weight.

They say if we can repeat a behavior for 21 days, it will become habit. So let’s make a habit of smiling. You remember smiling, right? It’s when you lift up the corners of your mouth and crunch your crow’s feet. Studies show that even a fake smile makes you and others feel better. So why not give it a try? It’s cheaper and easier than stockpiling cases of water, batteries and duct tape, and perhaps in your time of need, someone you smiled at will remember you, and invite you to share their supplies with them.

As I think of it, preparing for the end of the world is actually pretty simple. Live as if you only have until 12/21/12 to save your soul. Then wake up on 12/22/12, and repeat. Perhaps if we all did this, we could turn this into a world worth saving.