BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Letters

So my mom said that she can now read some letters on paper.  That's a step in the right direction.  She still has significant vision loss though.  Not sure if it will ever recover to the level it was prior.  I guess only time will tell.

As long as she can see enough to get around the house, that seems to be all that really matters to her.  And to be able to watch her Golden Girls DVDs.  She's obsessed with that show.  If you don't know what the Golden Girls is... and I have no idea HOW you could NOT know that show... it's 4 older ladies living in a house in Miami.  They are full of wisdom and sass.  And they are all like in their 70s, 80s or 90s.  I'm not certain on the age exactly.  But it's something along those lines.  Well anyways... you can probably find some episodes on Netflix I'm sure.  Or just head to your local Walmart.  That's where my mom got the entire series of Golden Girls on DVD.

I only know all about the show because I used to watch it in college... one of my friends in the dorms was obsessed with it too.  So I'd hang out with her and do homework and she'd do homework and she'd just have that on in the background.  It's funny.  And personally... I think those ladies are fabulous.

It's funny the memories though that are tied to things.  Like, I was thinking today about the memories of my grandparents, since I posted the blog yesterday about them.  I have specific albums for example that whenever I hear a song from that album I think of my grandmom.  Why?  Because when I was a kid at camp, she used to send me a couple of CDs each summer to add to my super crazy CD collection that I was completely obsessed with.  Nowadays I have all the music in iTunes and don't use CDs anymore, but at the time, I had cases and cases of CDs.  So she would let me pick one or two CDs and then she would mail them to me with a big long letter and a gift box with candy and such.  At the time the most important thing to me was the CD.  I can't for the life of me tell you what happened to the letter.  It pains me to think that I tossed it in the trash.

At this very moment, I can say that I WISH I would have kept the letters.  I could care less about the CD and the candy... but to be able to read her writing again?  I wish I still had those letters.

What's important changes in life as we age.  When we're younger we just have different wants and needs and things that we consider are important than when we get older.  Now that I work having savings of my own and investments of my own?  I could go buy an album and not even think twice about it.  But 15 bucks back when I was a young teen to buy a CD?  That was a LOT of money to me.  That was important.  And the letter was just something that came with the CD.  But all I really want now are those letters.

It's true what they say.  You don't really appreciate what you have until it's gone.  My mom was super happy just to be able to see a few letters on a page... Or just to be able to see the screen, even if very poorly, on the DVD player.  Something she had her whole life and didn't even think twice about.

I think if anyone reads this blog and gets anything out of it, be grateful for everything you have.  Be thankful and think about it all.  Know that any day, at any moment, anything could be taken from you.  So just cherish it all.  And keep letters.  Keep any letter that someone sends you.  You may just read it and delete it or throw it in the trash now, not thinking much about it, but I can tell you 10 years from now, or 20 years from now... You'll wish you had it to read again.

It kind of reminds me of this viral video I saw recently... the one where they are writing things on gum wrappers and it's a cute little love story.  The gum only lasts a moment, but the writing on the wrappers will last a whole lifetime.  In the initial moment it's the gum that seems more important, but it doesn't last, what lasts is the story on the wrapper... the very thing that's supposed to be discarded in the trash...

 
I find in life that a lot of times it works out like that... the things we never gave much thought to... end up becoming some of the most important things in our lives.  The letters, or the wrappers with writings on them.  And the same goes for people I think.  When you meet someone that may become VERY influential in your life, usually at first you don't give them much thought.  But then years later they were one of the most important and influential people you had ever met.  Completely changed you as a person or changed the direction of your life.  But then the things we thought were the most important things in the world at the time... become kind of silly and unimportant when we look back.