Live Life-In Memory of my Stepfather Richie 10/16/59-11/2/12

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I wrote this post right after I found out that my stepfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  This a terrible disease for which there is no cure and even with treatment the prognosis is usually less than a year.  His prognosis was 3-6 months………

One month after his diagnosis my stepfather, Richie, passed away at the age of 53 on 11/2/12.  I mourn for him and for the life he should have been able to complete, but couldn’t because of this terrible disease.

This post is for you Richie:

I am actually blogging on the train headed to Baltimore for Fitbloggin 12’.  I don’t know when this post will go live because many of the people involved with the reason I am writing this post are unaware of what is going on so out of respect for them I am writing it while I need to, but the post may not go live for awhile.

Last night prior to leaving for FitBloggin’ I received some devastating news about a family member that will change their life and all of our lives forever.  This type of news reminds me of why we cannot take any moment in our life for granted and why we she always hold our loved ones close as often as possible, because life can change in an instant.

If we are lucky we will live a long, healthy life filled with love, happiness and success.  Unfortunately, life can also be painful and unfulfilling at times, but I am learning each day that we have the ability to change our situation for the better no matter how dire it may seem to us at the time.

I don’t want to look back on my life and wonder what if??  I want to do as much as I can now right now and to stop waiting until tomorrow to be happy.  As cliche as it sounds, we need to live each day as if it were our last because we just never know what tomorrow will bring or even 10 minutes from now.

I wonder if we knew when we were going to leave this world would we do things differently?  Would we treat people differently?  Would we say I love you more often?  Would we be less cautious and take more risks?  WOuld we just live our life without regret?

I think the answer to all those questions would be yes, at least I know that it would be my answer.  I have slowly started trying to live my life this way because I want to live a full, happy life, without regret for as long as I am on this earth and I want my children to do the same.

I am actually doing something right now that I never thought I would do and that is taking a train to Baltimore for a 3 day trip to a fitness blogging conference sans the family.  I am missing them already, but I had the opportunity to be able to go on this trip and didn’t want to pass it up.  For me this is a risk because this is something I never thought I would do, but I have grown and become an actual independent adult that can do things on her own, without my husband and family.  I only wish I had discovered this 10 years ago or at  very least had the confidence in myself to do this 10 years ago.

Personally, I am just discovering what it truly means to live without the fear that I will make a fool of myself, get hurt, or that someone won’t like me.  All I know is that I strive everyday to be the best person I can be and that I put passion into everything I do, so it can’t be wrong.  I will never be able to please everyone and that is okay, what matters is that I please myself.  I don’t want to live with the constraints that maybe someone will take offense or not like something I am doing, because then we come back to my original point that if you live in that manner you are not truly living your life.

Everyday someone is touched by tragedy, some days it is closer to home than others.   It is unfortunate it takes these types of events to make us open our eyes to how we should truly live our life.

Take a cue from Kris Allen and live like you’re dying!

Although this post was written more than a month ago, given the timing of it’s publication, I feel this will hit home for many people considering the tragic events of Hurricane Sandy.