Nancy Lawrence 1930-2008

I talk a lot about life. And I’ve been inspired by many things. But nothing, I mean nothing has inspired me more than the lady you see before you. For 78 years, this woman, my mother, my father’s wife, took every day as a gift and spent her life returned it to others. A thing of beauty, a moment of love, a lifetime of passion.

My mother passed away this weekend, near Mother’s Day. A time when people celebrate their Moms. And that statement will forever be stamped in the corners of my mind. She didn’t want to be mourned. She didn’t want people to know how she died. What she wanted, was for people to know how she lived. And if there was ever a woman that lived every day as if it were her last, then she was this woman.

An extraordinary Mother, writer, martial artist and thinker. A person we all aspire to be, and can only hope to. She raisied 5 kids after having 5 miscarriages, overcoming addictions by becoming addicted to love. Wrote when age became an enemy. All things that few of us have gone through, but we can all understand.

She lost a son to AIDS, watched all her friends leave the earth before her, but this woman charged ahead as if propelled by the entire force of humanity. There was nothing that could get her down. Not even breaking her hips 4 times.

To be grateful that someone like this was in your life would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Considering all the millions of ways that life can, and does, affect us all negatively, to overcome and succeed is to test life for all that it has to offer.

As she began to fade in the last few years, the one thing that never did was her positive nature. No matter the situation, there was ALWAYS a bright side. Her greatest gift to me and to all that met her. A giant force of love and wisdom.
If there is ONLY one thing that you can take away from this post, please let it be… that no matter what your difficulty, not matter how hard life gets when you lose something you love… if that person were here to guide you, they would say “Get off your ass. Embrace the gift of life, and share it amongst each other. Don’t waste another day not doing what you love.”

It was only yesterday that she took me out Trick o’ Treating.

I love you, Mom. Thank you so much for having me…