Good Tuesday Morning!

1. Question – Why would a child say something like this to her teacher?: “Mrs. Johnson, you need to live until you die!”

2. Thought – “As a family, we made final arrangements for her burial, settled family matters, and laid my mother to rest. I cannot begin to describe the pain and anguish I felt from losing my mother and the depression that followed. It seemed that not only had I lost my mother but also a large part of myself. I went through a wide range of emotions from pain to anger and self-pity.

“Two weeks later I returned to the classroom and to my students, but did not realize that I had not fully recovered from the shock and grief of losing my mother. Nor did I understand how much I had changed in such a short period of time.

“At the end of my first week back in the classroom, one little girl asked me, ‘Mrs. Johnson, what’s wrong?’ I replied, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You aren’t like you were before you went on vacation.’

“I said, ‘Well, you know how you love your mommy?’ The little girl replied, ‘I love my mommy very much.’ I said, ‘My mommy just passed away and is in heaven, and I have been very sad.’

“The young girl replied, ‘Did your mommy live until she died?’

“I smiled and said, ‘Why, of course she did, honey.’

“With that the child said, ‘Mrs. Johnson, you need to live until you die!”

You need to live until you die.

From the mouth of babes comes the wisdom of ages. (Patrick T. Grady – Who Packs The Parachute?)

“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.” (John Donne)