Thought for today:
"Today, I go into hospital again for my next blood transfusion. This is an ongoing necessity for me now in order to oxygenate my blood and keep my major body organs funtioning. The days immediately prior to receiving my transfusion my energy is low, my legs feel very heavy and all I can essentially accomplish with ease is to rest. However, having had my transfusion of a few extra pints coursing through my veins, I leave the hospital a new man with a bounce in my stride and a smile across my face; much like a human rainbow coming out of the heavens after a shower.
Often while I am in the outpatient's cancer ward, I use the six or seven hours I'm there reading, listening to the radio, talking to nurses and other patients and thinking. An hour after lunch is usually taken up with remembering the very active life I always led until my early retirement and the onset of various ailments. Recalling such memories reminds me just how lucky a person I've been all my life.
When I think about the places I've been, the people I've met, the things I've done and the times I've had and shared, I can but rejoice in the amount of happiness these experiences have brought me. All of my lifetime I have felt 'special' and 'blessed' and I know that such feelings have shaped my beliefs and moulded my character to the man I am today.
In my youth, I used to jump off mountains. I literally felt fearless and believed I could do anything to which I applied myself and set my mind on. Then one day in my adulthood I figured it out why I was so emboldened to do dangerous things that others might dream of, but never try. I discovered that since my birth, I'd always carried around with me an invisible parachute; my mother's unqualified love along with her expressed confidence and belief in me!
Since the first words I could understand, I knew I was 'special' and capable of doing whatever I wanted to do in life because my mother told me so every day of my life. She had herself been told this news by an Irish peg-selling gipsy who disclosed this prophecy for the price of sixpence and a bottle of stout, three months before my birth. From that day onward, everything I did that was good, different or unusual and everything good that came my way, or everything bad that didn't visit me, happened 'because I was the special first born of seven children who was born to an Irish woman, who was herself the special first born of seven children.' Every living Irish person will testify to the veracity of this well known fact which is accepted in every Irish home and pub.
So you see, my invisible parachute was my mother's belief in me which I readily accepted. The Irish gipsy told her she would have 'a special son' and she believed it. She told me constantly that I was 'special' and so I believed it. Therefore, it was only natural that in time, I would become 'special' and 'believe in myself!'
I grew up for the first twenty five years of my life believing I was 'special' and acting out my specialness. I have spent the past forty seven years learning that everyone and every creature who lives and breathes is also 'special.'
My advice to all parents of young children out there, please remind your child they are 'special' and that you love them every day of their life and by doing so, you shall give them their invisible parachute that will enable them to jump off mountains also!" William Forde: June 3rd, 2015.
"Today, I go into hospital again for my next blood transfusion. This is an ongoing necessity for me now in order to oxygenate my blood and keep my major body organs funtioning. The days immediately prior to receiving my transfusion my energy is low, my legs feel very heavy and all I can essentially accomplish with ease is to rest. However, having had my transfusion of a few extra pints coursing through my veins, I leave the hospital a new man with a bounce in my stride and a smile across my face; much like a human rainbow coming out of the heavens after a shower.
Often while I am in the outpatient's cancer ward, I use the six or seven hours I'm there reading, listening to the radio, talking to nurses and other patients and thinking. An hour after lunch is usually taken up with remembering the very active life I always led until my early retirement and the onset of various ailments. Recalling such memories reminds me just how lucky a person I've been all my life.
When I think about the places I've been, the people I've met, the things I've done and the times I've had and shared, I can but rejoice in the amount of happiness these experiences have brought me. All of my lifetime I have felt 'special' and 'blessed' and I know that such feelings have shaped my beliefs and moulded my character to the man I am today.
In my youth, I used to jump off mountains. I literally felt fearless and believed I could do anything to which I applied myself and set my mind on. Then one day in my adulthood I figured it out why I was so emboldened to do dangerous things that others might dream of, but never try. I discovered that since my birth, I'd always carried around with me an invisible parachute; my mother's unqualified love along with her expressed confidence and belief in me!
Since the first words I could understand, I knew I was 'special' and capable of doing whatever I wanted to do in life because my mother told me so every day of my life. She had herself been told this news by an Irish peg-selling gipsy who disclosed this prophecy for the price of sixpence and a bottle of stout, three months before my birth. From that day onward, everything I did that was good, different or unusual and everything good that came my way, or everything bad that didn't visit me, happened 'because I was the special first born of seven children who was born to an Irish woman, who was herself the special first born of seven children.' Every living Irish person will testify to the veracity of this well known fact which is accepted in every Irish home and pub.
So you see, my invisible parachute was my mother's belief in me which I readily accepted. The Irish gipsy told her she would have 'a special son' and she believed it. She told me constantly that I was 'special' and so I believed it. Therefore, it was only natural that in time, I would become 'special' and 'believe in myself!'
I grew up for the first twenty five years of my life believing I was 'special' and acting out my specialness. I have spent the past forty seven years learning that everyone and every creature who lives and breathes is also 'special.'
My advice to all parents of young children out there, please remind your child they are 'special' and that you love them every day of their life and by doing so, you shall give them their invisible parachute that will enable them to jump off mountains also!" William Forde: June 3rd, 2015.
