I Wish You Enough!

Most of us have read this story on the Net for the past few years but have you really let the words sink in?

When my daughter was a wee little one, she loved to talk or rather, make sounds. Her first real word was Baba, which I am sure was just a sound but since it is what she calls my mom, we decided that it was her first word.

I always told my daughter that I loved her, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Still do. But as a toddler who could say some words, she tried to say the three words but it kept coming out at as LABU. I would hug her and say 'I love you' and she would respond back with 'LABU, mama'. It was her way to say she loved me. Even though my daughter is now 31, we still say LABU to each other. The whole family has actually taken a hold of the word and we use it with one another. LABU means I love you.

So this story has a lot of meaning to me because even though you shorten the full message, it still comes through loud and clear. And family traditions... well, you can't beat those. They keep memories alive.

For those of you who've never read it, here is the full story. By the way, I wish you enough...

~~~~~

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport as the daughter’s departure had been announced.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said: “I love you and I wish you enough.”

The daughter replied, “Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom.”

They kissed and the daughter left.

The mother walked over to the window where I sat. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry.

I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking but why is this a forever good-bye?”

“I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is the next trip back will be for my funeral,” she said.

When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, “I wish you enough.” May I ask what that means?”

 

She began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.”

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more.

“When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them”.

Then turning toward me, she shared the following, reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to sob and walked away.

~~~~~

The World I Know...

Driving to work recently, this song came on while I was exiting off of 8 and as I rolled to a stop, for the first time, I really listened to the lyrics and it hit me hard. I couldn't stop the tears from falling as I slowly drove down the road, just listening.

I got thinking about my life, my daughter's life, my mother's life and lives of others from generations back.

I recalled a conversation with my mom about how she grew up in Japan and how war affected who she is. At 8 years old, her home was destroyed by American bombs while she and her mom where out at the grocery store. They walked through carnage of dead, burning bodies and body parts, burning buildings crumbling around them as they walked to get where their home use to be but was now flatten and burning. Everything they owned on their bodies as they stood there in fear, anger and sadness.

She came out of that a strong woman who did more for others than they do for her but the horrors she saw as a young child affected her that way. To do more for others so they never have to go what she went through. That is how she decided to live her life and continues to as she inches her way to her 80th birthday in December.

Then I looked to the other side of my family tree... my daughter. She is a young, talented, intelligent, beautiful woman, who is living her life on her terms but she works hard for everything she has. Even though war has not touched her personally, she has grown up in a society and generation where there is always war somewhere.

It got me thinking... what generation did not have war? I mean, at all. But history shows that there was never a society that was free of war. There has been fighting from the dawn of time.

Makes you wonder what kind of life it would be to turn on the news and not have anyone talk about war in some faraway land.

So, as you listen, what kind of world do you see and what kind of world do you wish for?

Here are the lyrics:

Has our conscience shown?

Has the sweet breeze blown?

Has all the kindness gone?

Hope still lingers on.

I drink myself of newfound pity

Sitting alone in New York City

And I don't know why.

Are we listening

To hymns of offering?

Have we eyes to see

That love is gathering?

All the words that I've been reading

Have now started the act of bleeding

Into one.

Into one.

So I walk up on high

And I step to the edge

To see my world below.

And I laugh at myself

As the tears roll down.

'Cause it's the world I know.

It's the world I know.

I drink myself of newfound pity

Sitting alone in New York City

And I don't know why.

So I walk up on high

And I step to the edge

To see my world below.

And I laugh at myself

As the tears roll down.

'Cause it's the world I know.

It's the world I know.

Worthiness

Last October, I made a decision that was based on pure chance but as luck would have it, it turned out to be an amazing experience for me. I had the honor of seeing the Dalai Lama give a speech at the Western Connecticut State University and I was completely spellbound. Brought up by a Buddhist mother, I learned what the religion was about and though I went through phases of what I believed throughout my life, in the end, I always knew that my beliefs were closest to Buddhism.

In this day and age, we give so much importance to money and material things, we forget to nurture humanity. His first thoughts were that we should stop relying on money or material things to bring us happiness. It never works because we get stuck in a vicious cycle of trying to buy something better than the last item and what we end up with is a bunch of stuff and a lot of emptiness inside us. What we need to do is to focus on helping others in less fortunate circumstances. The more you help, the more it fills your insides. And the less you spend on stuff that does not fulfill you, the more money you have to pay your bills (his words, not mine.) The funny thing is that the less I spend, the more that seems to come into my life so then I am able to help others or donate to worthy causes.

He spoke about topics he felt were important to humanity; tolerance, compassion and forgiveness. With different cultures around the world, we are taught to keep within our own society and learn to live within it. We are taught to be intolerant and to hold onto grudges because anything else is a sign of weakness. But the truth of the matter is that it is the opposite. We have to start teaching that anger and holding onto grudges are the weaknesses. It is easy to stay angry, it's easy to hold on to negative thoughts, it's easy to seek revenge but it saps our energy and eats away at our hearts and our souls. We become less tolerant and cold. If we can learn tolerance, compassion and forgiveness, a calmness, serenity, an inner peace starts to grow within us. That shows a true sign of strength; being able to forgive those who are negative or want to do or say harm to you or others.

He talked about the topic of making decisions for yourself, on how to find your own happiness. He said no one can do it for you. Only you are the one that decides to be compassionate. You are the one that decides to find your own inner peace. You decide to be tolerant or forgive. Stop over thinking and analyzing and just let things be simple. (I am very guilty of doing this a lot!) Compassion is simple to do. Kindness is simple to do. Forgiving is simple to do. We all know what it feels like when someone does or says something nice for/to us. If we can do that to others all the time, it could start a chain reaction of people starting to care and be more compassionate, more kind, more forgiving.

I am a compassionate person but I am also human and still trying to find my way in this journey. I still tend to hold on to the hurts when I am wronged but I also have found that I am learning to let it go much more quickly so that it is released from me.

I moved far away to be in solitary and am starting to find who I am and what I am willing to endure. I am finding my strength in being alone. I am seeing what I am willing to give to those who are important to me but also doing what I have to by giving up those who have no time for me. I have a lot of love to give to those who are worth it and to walk away from those who are not.

With that, on your journey in life, may you find happiness, serenity and love.

Then Comes the Healing

Hurt. Sadness. Anger. Disappointment. Frustration. Pain.

What makes all of these bearable as a human beings? How do we get through each day, then come to see, months later, that we are not in as much pain as we thought we were. We find we are less sad and smile more often. The anger had drained slowly out of us without feeling it happen.

Healing. That is what happened. And time... it is really the only way to get there.

I know when you are in that moment when something happened to you to cause those negative emotions, we can't see the future but it will diminish slowly and we will slowly forget the pain.

What we need to do to make it complete is to let it go. That is where a lot of us have the problem. We hold on to it, for whatever reason, but in the end, it destroys us, not the person or the event that hurt us, in the first place. They are gone and we are forgotten by them but we are still here.

How to let go? I think it is different for each of us and we need to find the way to do it to be whole and at peace with ourselves.

I think talking it out helps for some. Crying helps for others and yet for the other bunch, it is just deciding to let go and doing it. Then there are those who write about it. I do write a lot to let things go and I find that as I look back, I feel free and the weight has come off. It's really a good thing happening because what it does is to allow more love to come in.

Say it slowly to yourself.

I am ok.

I will be fine.

I will smile brightly one day and know that life goes on.

Healing. What a wonderful thing!