Community Chat

[Mox ie]

When I was a child and growing up as an adult most of my role models were people that I knew personally. Some were teachers, neighbors, friends, and other people who I came into contact through my personal live and my work life. None were celebrities or politicians or famous. I might have admired those people but I never chose any of them as role models.

When I was a teen, I helped an elderly neighbor by doing light housekeeping for her on Saturday mornings. She had beautiful crystal figurines that we would take down together and wash and dry and put them back all sparkly clean. We dusted and swept her little house until it was all tidy. She paid me $10 for about 2 hours work and when we were finished we had tea and cookies. I never really liked tea but the cookies were lemon and I loved them.

She taught me to respect the beautiful things in life and how you did not have to have a lot to appreciate the finer things in life. How if you keep your eyes open you will find something beautiful in nature that grabs your heart and gives you the assurance that there is a God, because who else would give us this delightful treasure when we are feeling sad. Esther was her name. I miss her still.

My mother was a huge role model for me. She saw beauty when I saw ugliness and when I cried she covered me with hugs and kisses and told me how loved I was and how special I was, if it wasn't for my mother, I don't think I would have made it through my teenage years.

I won't go on because there are so many people in my ife that inspired me and loved me and made me see that I was going down the wrong path and got me on the right path. Some of them don't know how much they helped me, and some of you are on this board. All of my role models are kind, beautiful people who took a moment out of their life to be kind to me and said something or did something to me that changed something or touched a cord within me and I thank you all for that.