love

Leave a comment Posted on Uncategorized

Two Years to Fifty: A Reminder from the Love of My Life about “MO”

With my husband’s consent, I am posting this to share just one of the many reasons why I am so blessed to have him by my side.  We have an extremely unique life and it has more than it’s fair share of hurdles and sometimes I can only see the hurdles and I become blind to the beauty of the simplest of things.  

In a marriage or in any relationship or friendship, each person has to bring something, sometimes ever so small yet ever so significant to the other’s life and Tom has always been able to subtly and easily remind me of how much joy a single moment, image or sound can fill our souls.  He has always maintained that his goal as a man, a father and husband was happiness for us, for his family, friends and everyone really.  It is a good goal. A solid and sensible goal that reminds me that at the end of the day happiness, contentment and love are all that really matter.  So here are my husband’s words which I appreciate more and more as I grow older with him.  It touched me, brought a tear to my eye and flooded my heart with joy and I hope you take away something good from it as well.

________________________________________________________________________________

 

  Heaven help me, I’m about to get ‘deep’ on Facebook. If I were still in radio I’d probably do a ‘bit’ on how stupid that is. I’ve been watching videos on youtube tonight and honestly…I like doing that. I love the internet, and modern times. How it allows us to go get something that comes to mind, almost instantly. I can spend HOURS doing that if I’m in the right mood.

Tonight…it’s music.

I’ve spent a LONG time…a quarter century…in the music field. I’ve been on radio stations ranging from hard-rock to Christian. Yep, you read that right, and I had a great time there. And I SO appreciate that history and everyone and everything that went along with that entire journey. Which has led to a realization that I think I already had, but just couldn’t really focus on enough to present.

One of the MOST important things in life begins with the letters “MO”…and it’s not ‘money’. It’s ‘moments’. Truly great moments are what we all hang on to more than ANYTHING else.

I remember when I was 21, and sitting on a wooden bench next to Daniella when she told me she had feelings for me, and that was something I had been carefully hoping for, and working towards for MONTHS. I’m married to her to this day, love her as much as I did then, possibly more, despite the obstacles life has thrown our way and that’s fantastic…because they’re all ‘moments’.

I remember when my first son, Adam, was born. He cried and cried in the delivery room…and I walked up to him in his bassinet and quietly said “Hello Adam” and he immediately stopped crying, and opened his eyes. Even though he couldn’t see through the dark black eyes it was obvious he was searching for the voice he’d heard so many times while he was in his mother’s belly. GREAT moment.

I remember when my second son, Logan, was born, and he came out blue, and not breathing. Daniella looked at me and asked “is he all right? He’s not crying” with a panic in her voice that matched the panic in my heart that I wish NO-ONE ever experience. All I could do was be strong for her and say “let them work, he’s going to be okay”. He cried soon after and the ‘resuscitation team’ started betting on how big they thought he was. He was 10lbs 2 oz if you need to know. He is a great son…couldn’t be more proud. Some fathers of sons would say “if you have daughters, watch out for my son”…I say watch FOR my son…because he’s going to be an excellent man…the kind you HOPE your daughters find. And if he reads this, he’s going to complain to me about that…but he’ll grow into it. Another moment.

I have been SO lucky and SO blessed to have already had SO MANY moments. I hope you have too.

I love moments.

When it comes to music, my time in the field has given me a very large quantity of respect and admiration for some. Peter Gabriel is probably my favourite, but there are many others. I remember working at 1050 CHUM in my early days. I was 19. Working at an ‘oldies’ station. At first I was bored…wasn’t my thing. But the more I listened something clicked. I gained HUGE respect for these artists…because they didn’t have the crutch of digital, or even mutli-track systems that allowed them to ‘redo’ or ‘perfect’ this or that. When it came to oldies music, if the song was good, it was because the BAND was GOOD. The song you heard was the band all in a room, when someone hit the record button and said “go”. They HAD to sound like that. Listen to the Spencer Davis Group singing “I’m a Man” and tell me that isn’t some seriously good music.

So here now, is one of my favourite things that I will watch over and over again.

This…is Led Zeppelin. And this clip is FULL of moments.

I’m not even a huge fan of Zeppelin…honestly. I like their stuff, sure…but I’m not a ‘zed-head’.

But I love this. I can watch this over and over and still get caught up in the emotion of it.

Here are the surviving members of the original band…who were GIANTS of the world. Back in the day just sucking the LIFE out of life. Center stage, in front of the biggest crowds who LOVED their music. This is 40 years later. Watch the original members, how old they are, and how they still, to THIS DAY, are attached to this music. You can see it in Robert Plants eyes. You can see it in Jimmy Page’s smile. You can also see the reverence that Heart pays to them. They’re performing the hell out of this song, but even while doing that, it’s almost like they have to EARN it, and they KNOW that…and, despite their OWN success, hope to measure up to the task. And you can see the emotion of Jason Bonham, the son of the original drummer, John Bonham, as he honours his fathers work. You can see the respect of SO MANY of the biggest people we know today in this ‘moment’.

I love that. That’s how you know you’ve ‘won’ at life.

I hope you enjoy this clip as much as I do…and I hope you take the time to think of some of your moments too. We all have them. They’re great to go back to again, and again.

My apologies for how long this is, and I completely suspect you’ve either skimmed through this, or bailed out when you saw the “continue reading” part in my status…but if you’ve stuck around…hey!…another ‘moment’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xufuZ0dCmLA

_________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you Tom for allowing me to share this as well. Thank you for your positive and easy going disposition.  Thank you for choosing to be a part of this roller coaster ride that is our life. I love you and I thank you for loving me. ~ Daniella

Leave a comment Posted on Uncategorized

2015 – The Year to Move Forward with Love.

When my husband and I renewed our vows in 2007, we’d been together for 10 years.  He waited until the last minute to write his vows to me and he stole the show to say the least and brought tears to my eyes.  In them, he promised something that still sticks with me to this day and it was to continue hand in hand with me on the roller coaster that is our life together.  I held on to his words every day last year in what was the most difficult one for our family.  Our pain and struggle came in the form desperately trying to save our son who was struggling for his independence while living with autism and going through puberty.  Suffice it to say, when things are not right with a family member every aspect of everyone’s lives is affected and it seemed like there was a dark cloud hovering over our heads.

Though the roller coaster of 2014 was the harshest and most stomach churning of all our years since the children were born, I can speak on behalf of my husband and sons and say that it was also one of the most enriching and rewarding because it is in hard times that we see who we really are and who to call acquaintance and who we can truly call friend and who need not accompany us into the new year.  2014 reminded me that love is the only answer, ingredient, magic trick, drug, tool or whatever you want to call it that can truly change anything. Love turns darkness into light.  Though I have always been surrounded by love, it is only as I have gotten older and more in tune with who I am and who I will eventually settle to be, that I know how to truly love.  And by that I mean love all people and how to find love in different situations and places.  Love can save a child, can save a marriage, a life or many lives.  It can put food on a table, toys in the hands of a child, wrap a warm blanket around a homeless person or simply a smile on someone’s face.  I was fortunate to be surrounded by love and a lot of it came to me via virtual strangers whose kindness have made them part of my family.

I have always made a point of giving. Giving in ways that matter. Giving subtly and  because my family was so fortunate to have received so much love this year, it encouraged me to seek it out more.  My husband and I found ourselves looking at documentaries about people who changed communities by simple acts of love.  I found myself smiling even on the hardest days, knowing that we were still better off than so many around the world.  I found myself listening more, caring more and I was inspired to be less angry, less sorry for myself and my family’s situation and forge into 2015 with hope.

2014 also taught me that to move forward with love, you have to choose how best to spend your time and with whom.  Moving forward with love also means cutting off the sticky, clinging arms of those who hold you back.  You know, those whom you like well enough but there is an underlying quality of their nature that is corrosive and it doesn’t do anything positive for anyone?  Yeah, those people.  The ones you are polite to, tolerate as you listen to their incessant whining about something so frivolous you don’t understand how evolution hasn’t made them extinct by now.  The person so absorbed in their own destructive behavior that they have no clue that they are dragging down the ones who love them the most. Yeah, that person.  The rather rude person who needs to be seen talking to the right person in the crowd and if that happens to be you, you can set your watch to the exact time when they walk off and head to someone they deem more popular than you, in spite of the fact you’re in mid-conversation with them.  Particularly amazed by that particular breed of human. Then there is the friend who commends you for being the rock they needed in their time of struggle but doesn’t have the decency to ask how you’re doing or make a concerted effort to spend time with you as you do your best to get through each day.  That person is from the always baffling, self- absorbed centre of the universe club.  But in my quest to embrace more love, I have not come to bear any malice towards these people.  I truly do love them.  Love them enough to forgive them for not being smart enough, or kind enough, or sensitive enough to others. Love them enough to let them go. And while I am happy to forgive them I won’t forget not one precious second of my time be wasted on them because it will deprive others of what I have to give.

2014 showed me how much my mother and my sister, my cousins, aunts and uncles, father-in-law and SJC sisters love me and my family.  It showed me just how much my sisters-in-law and brothers-in law, try their best to be a part of our lives even though they are so far away.  I feel the love of my dear friends J, F and L across the miles and it keeps me strong and it was because of these people and a few used-to-be-strangers that my family and I were able to stay afloat on a wave of love that took us right to the end of 2014 and washed us safely onto the shores of 2015.  We’ve gotten to our feet, we’ve breathed in the fresh air and we are filled with courage but most of all we are filled with love  – love that we want to give.  I wish you all a 2015 of love.  Love to give.  Love to receive. Love that will set us free.  Love that can change our families,communities and just maybe, change the world.