2 bunnies and a beer

Bunnies and ashes...odd combination you might say...My husband and I were headed to our table after ordering a pizza. We were waiting for our meal and noticed an older man coming to the counter to order his pizza. He had a bag of something with him, ordered and proceeded to the bar to order his beer. When he sat down right behind me at the next table, my husband said he was removing bunnies from his bag and plopping them around the table next to him. Puts bunnies and a beer on one side of himself and begins to enjoy his beer. My husband said I bet they belong to his wife. So as I sometimes do, I felt an urge to make contact with him. I patted him on the shoulder and asked him to tell me about his bunnies. "My wife passed away two months ago" "These were hers, they go everywhere with me". " I'm going to Las Vegas in a few weeks and they will go with me". "See this one wears a necklace that has her ashes in it."
So I asked him about Grief groups, who else does he have to talk to? No one and no way, he is too much of a loner...flew planes in the war. He says he is just moving along and traveling where he can with his bunnies by his side. So if that didn't have me choked up enough, I turned to my husband and said, "would you do that for me?" He said, "of course". Well that did it, the flood gates opened and I was a combination of mascara laden and drippy leaving that pizza parlor. I waved to the elderly man and wished him a Happy Thanksgiving and safe journey on his next adventure!

Get a Life America!

I was invited to be a vender this week at the Caring for the Caregiver conference in Anacortes. It was designed to combine individual caregivers of ill and elderly with professionals in that same industry to come together and hear some good news. To break away and be inspired.
I set my table up with a hot towel cabby and a few of my marketing materials and was at the ready to offer some nurturing thru hot towels and sea weed wash. Because the vender tables were in the main room, the presentation could be enjoyed by everyone. It was a wonderful treat.

Lennie Mees, M.D. from Portland Oregon was the key note speaker. Very small world that it is, he lives just blocks from our old house in Eastmoreland on Portland's southeast side. If you google his name, you will come across several behavioral engineering sites and a few slideshows of work he has done with Nike and OSHA. He needs a website. I thought what he had to say was so profound that I wrote enough notes for several days of blog material.

Get a Life America is a book he wrote years a few years ago about our frantic society. With a great deal of humor and personal testimony, he schools you. Stress = cocaine use on the body?
Really? My intention is to share, over the next few days, other amazing gems!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0967550009/qid=1093710987/sr=1-1
You can get his book or sign up for his newsletter Lrmees@aol.com.