Red Wagon, Monday's Warm Cocoa, 29 July 2024

“Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley

Red Wagon

My wife’s parents purchased our children a little red Radio Flyer wagon and gave it to us when our children were young. Grandma and Grandpa still had a Radio Flyer in use at the home where my wife grew up. The gift was a rite of passage in their family and we were so pleased to be able to keep that little red wagon flame burning bright. Our kids used it and when they flew the coop we still used it for lots of tasks around our yard, keeping it active, waiting for the day when our grandchildren would be toted around our neighborhood in it. And, about three days ago a similar red wagon story was unexpectedly, twice recited.

An email from Kimberly Norris introduced me to a new friend, Carla Burg. Kimberly is always planting such fostering relationship seeds. It’s her normal practice and they’re always amazing connections, improving both my personal and business life in unexpected ways. This introduction was not an exception.

Carla, it turns out, told me of her experience with Helen Walton, a magnificent person, who was well known in her small town for community involvement and philanthropy, which included a love for beautifying public spaces. Carla’s notable story painted a vibrant picture of Helen and her habit of transporting flowers in her little red Radio Flyer wagon and planting them in the entrance garden of the Benton County Courthouse, on Bentonville Square, just a few short blocks from her home.

In the 1970s, Helen Walton took it upon herself to enhance the appearance of the community’s centerpiece. She added beauty and charm to the town’s center by personally selecting and planting flowers. Perhaps equally as important, Helen offered a Radio-Flyer-led-rite-of-passage for coming generations to model. She shaped a path for continuation of civility and goodness by leading the way for others in a simple, yet impactful way, which is revered this very day. 

Later, just hours after Carla shared Helen’s storied example, in another gathering of community minded people, the leader of a new, not for profit endeavor used Helen’s Radio Flyer, flower planting example as the impetus for entering into community service herself. She is “still not ready to give it up” after more than twenty years of self-giving.

Aldous Huxley said, “Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.”

So, I’m passing this “Red Wagon Rite of Passage” to you. And, like my wife’s parents and Helen Walton, it’s what you do with it that matters now and in the future.

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I’ve helped thousands of people, as a real estate & lifestyle expert, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve Realesation. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQ1IEEKnTvQfoeb_CB_ftokpGvpCnJc8/view?usp=drive_link

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Fredrick Douglas

The Struggle with Dreams

Reflecting on moments that have shaped his life, actor Ethan Hawke recently reflected on how what he calls courageous expression promoted his own healing and connection with others. 

"There is no path till you walk it," he says.

And, walking that path isn’t always easy. While dreaming is often easy, few have connected the always accompanying difficulty that always occurs when the dream of a lifetime progress toward realization.

“Now that I can see the possibility of my dream coming true, I’m afraid,” Christina anxiously said during a recent phone call.

The anxiety piggybacking on her voice was unmistakable. It carried an emotional plea for validation. She was seeking confirmation that the decision she was in the process of making was the right thing to do. She was weighing many factors, all of which would be shifting her situation away from the comfortable.

Part of that comfort was the held familiarity of her dreamt of future; something that would happen someday, but not today. She wasn’t ready to let go of that companionship. It had become an essential part of her thoughts and stimulus to keep moving forward. What would she do without it? This fear, common to all may be labeled, “Dream Challenge.”

Dream Challenge is your personal aspiration asking you if you really want it. If you’re willing to cross the last hurdle to usher in its realization. It’s something Fredrick Douglas understood well.

He said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Advancement means moving forward. Which also means walking on new ground, with unfamiliarity. And, many people answer their dream’s last question of desire with hurdle acquiescence. They don’t even try to move past the familiar. They see the hurdle as repulsive, rather than a door through which to progress. And, at this point you may be asking, “what was Christina’s response?”

She and Alexander, her husband, answered with a great leap! And, to their delight they found that the seeming hurdle, at first appearing to be gargantuan, was nothing more than a twig across the path toward their future. It crumbled as soon as it was challenged by their commitment. It was as if the doorway forward had been magically opened.

“Realization of our dream seems to be divinely appointed,” she said today.

"There is no path till you walk it," Ethan Hawke says. And, Christina heartily agrees, while looking forward to more personal courageous expression promoting her own healing and connection with others, and the divine.

Are you acting courageously while dreaming?

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I’ve helped thousands of people, as a real estate & lifestyle expert, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve Realesation. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rv-M3STZZFYUcWvqdlamPYy7_5MXNWy4?usp=drive_link

“I didn’t know they were leaning until I saw them from a different angle, from a neighboring yard.” – Tony Garcia

Another View

A man was dangling from ropes at the top of a broad, tall, seemingly ancient oak tree. He had a chainsaw in one gloved hand and a lifeline-thread clutched in another. To look at him do his work was equally a glimpse of daredevil living and unsettling.

Unsettling because few people are willing to bet their life on the strength of a rope alone. Especially while holding that line while brandishing a live chainsaw. It all seemed a little crazy! But, there was a reason for this work.

Tony, a landscape expert, looked from that yard at two adjoining yards as he was working his vegetal magic. He has years of experience related to salvation of such mighty oak trees. 

“We trim the trees to remove dead branches and even out the canopy,” he explained to the watching neighbors. “That way, when the strong winds blow against the trees they’ll have a paramount chance to withstand a turbulent onslaught.”

His words were practically prophetic, because not more than thirty days later, such treacherous air-torrents did their worst. Seemingly indestructible Oaks were proven and judged differently. Lucky trees had limbs claiming the ground all around their base. Unlucky trees found themselves having roots without the ground and were doomed.

Three or four weeks later Tony was back to look at the trees he had prepared for the unexpected, possible devastation. To his gratification, the trees he had sculpted stood strong and were mostly undamaged. They were a monolith testament to his skill and he stood there savoring his tree-sculpting success. And, he looked again next door.

He saw two huge oak trees standing together.

“I didn’t know they were leaning until I saw them from a different angle, from a neighboring yard,” Tony said. “So, I went over to talk to those neighbors.”

When he talked with the neighbors they were surprised. Because, while standing close to those trees they seemed to be straight, strong and healthy. They were strong and healthy, yet leaning. And, the vivid memory of recent tree-killing-storms brought to mind the real possibility that these trees could crash into their home, crushing it. Suddenly, the strength and health of the seemingly solid and immovable were in question.

Such seemingly permeance and strength can sometimes be seen for what it is, an illusion, when examined from another point of view. A caring friend who possesses understanding, expertise and knowledge can help sculpt our lives in preparation to battle the potential treacherous air-torrents of life.

They can offer an alternative, beneficial and sometimes life-saving assessment.

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I’ve helped thousands of people, as a real estate & lifestyle expert, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve Realesation. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rv-M3STZZFYUcWvqdlamPYy7_5MXNWy4?usp=drive_link

“Adam’s friend called us from the emergency room.” – Chris Kendall

Unanticipated

She held me tight and sobbed on my shoulder. This unanticipated and poignant embrace allowed me to feel the depth of Rebecca’s pain. It radiated through me like the burning of an overheated sun. Hers was the first embrace received, immediately upon my arrival. Another almost identical emotional squeeze was to follow directly.

Chris Kendall came next, delivering a follow-on embrace, as soon as his spouse, Rebecca pulled away. He is a tall, broad shouldered man of seventy-seven years and every inch of his frame was mourning. His lamentation gripped my entirety, causing even my bones to hurt, especially as he spoke in broken alterations between halting, catching-breaths and tears.

“His friend called us from the emergency room. She wanted us to know what was happening,” he began. “It was late at night when she called. We were getting ready to go visit family in Illinois.”

While pulling away, Chris seemed to gain a sad, yet brief composure, whilst continuing to stand next to me, as if creating veiled separation from the invited-crowd as he continued.

“Even though Adam was being attended by physicians in the medical school hospital where he worked, the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Nobody did. Then, I heard a noise I’ll never forget! The medical-monitor-flat-line sound cruelly shrilled my son’s death, while on that call.”

We were standing in that same hospital. This time all gathered there were convoked to honor and celebrate the too-short-life of Adam Kendall.

“Look at all the people here!” I expressed to Chris and Rebecca with an accompanying physical gesture. “These people loved Adam and they’ve come to show that affection, as well as to offer you support.

That support is truly needed by Chris and Rebecca. After all, they moved here from Colorado a couple of years ago, just to be closer to their beloved son. Adam had lived here for a mere four years, as part of his short forty-three earth measured years.

“It was too soon! He was too young! We don’t even know why he died, what caused it! I miss him already and I’ll miss him forever,” Chris conveyed after nearly everyone had left the hospital-lobby-filled celebration.

It was time for me to leave too, after another compassionate embrace with Chris and Rebecca. We communicated our leave-taking with shared, gratitude-filled valedictory smiles. Because, though the lobby space was no longer bursting with friends and admirers of Adam, the combined love of friends and family had filled our hearts with comfort, hope and in an unanticipated way, with Adam.

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I’ve helped thousands of people, as a real estate & lifestyle expert, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve Realesation. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rv-M3STZZFYUcWvqdlamPYy7_5MXNWy4?usp=drive_link

Butterfly Lady - Monday's Warm Cocoa, 1 July 2024

“The biggest and most disastrous moments in a person’s life can be the most defining of a person’s character and a person’s heart.” – David Willard

Butterfly Lady

“Did you have damage from the tornadoes that hit your area on Memorial Day,” I asked.

“Not this time,” Vicki responded. “We were lucky those nine tornadoes didn’t combine into one super funnel cloud like what happened in Joplin.”

Vicki Bronson then asked, “have you heard of the Butterfly Lady?”

“No,” I said, just before she rehearsed it.

Vicki used to live in Joplin Missouri. She was there when that big tornado came to alter the landscape and lives.

“There’s a monument inspired by the Butterfly Lady in Joplin,” Vicki continued.

A family of five, upon hearing the tornado warning sirens, rushed to their basement seeking shelter. They made it to the basement, mostly. 

When the mother looked around the basement she was immediately distraught. The storm was battering their home. They could hear it lifting and tearing the structure above them away. And worse, their youngest son was not in the basement with them!

They couldn’t leave until the storm passed and they couldn’t search for their not-to-be-found son until then either. They hunkered down and prayed. Then in mere moments, a seeming eternity for the freighted family in the basement, the funnel cloud savaged onward. They could leave their refuge.

Once upstairs, with feeble sunshine filtering through clouds in an otherwise dark sky, they saw true devastation. Their house was gone. Everything was gone! And, there was no sign of their son. They were filled with shock, especially when they noticed an unrecognized car sitting near the foundation of their now destroyed house. Surprisingly, that car was completely undamaged!

They cautiously approached the undamaged car while calling-out the name of their son in desperation. They kept calling until they were so close to the car they could touch it, and hear their son’s response from inside the car’s trunk!

After getting him out of the trunk, by hitting a trunk open switch in the cockpit, they asked him how he got into the trunk, as they couldn’t locate a key to the car. That’s when the five-year-old child said, “The Butterfly Lady put me in there, told me I’d be safe and not to worry.”

“The Butterfly Lady?” they queried.

“Yes,” he said. “She was a lady with wings just like a butterfly.”

The boy’s survival, assurance and story inspired the community of Joplin to create “The Butterfly Garden and Overlook.” They regard it as a “sacred place for individuals to work through the pain of grieving and acceptance of the reality of their loss” resulting from the most devastating storm in the town’s history.

The garden’s “penciled” outline of homes represents all homes erased by the storm. There is also a thirty-eight-segment waterfall representing the number of minutes the tornado was on the ground.

David Willard, contributor of a monument in the garden, chiseled in stone, “The biggest and most disastrous moments in a person’s life can be the most defining of a person’s character and a person’s heart.”

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I’ve helped thousands of people, as a real estate & lifestyle expert, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve Realesation. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home By Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rv-M3STZZFYUcWvqdlamPYy7_5MXNWy4?usp=drive_link