alive

Our emotions serve great purpose; they are the strength and the weakness, they allow expression of ones innermost identity, while their presence testifies that we are still alive.

A friend of mine was telling me her grandma’s notable, yet challenging life story. She survived World War II, saw her best friend killed, and later discovered her husband had been unfaithful. Recently, being frail and lonely, she attempted suicide.

I think of my great-grandpa who is still alive and thriving at the age of 92, and all the stories he shares with me about his youth are mostly anecdotes of the war. It is hard to relate to these memories of his, especially when they are embedded with loss.  

He is a stubborn old man, who cannot finish a sentence without somehow implementing “Goddamn it” as a way of further proving his point. He remembers being deported here on Oahu, many years ago, and can still remember the exact address of his home here on the Island, which beach it was near, and the fact there was no strip mall bordering the shoreline.

As I listen to these stories and attempt to comprehend their individual situations and trials, it all seems fictitious.It is hard, at times, to see the big picture and realize how blessed we all really are.

Another good friend of mine brought up the fact that he has lived a life where he’s been able to eat three meals a day—this amazes him—when so many all over the world are barely able to scrounge a meal a week.Sometimes I catch myself complaining or getting down on myself about the smallest issues/problems, which to the majority of the world would be laughable.

I feel that everyone has moments when the natural emotion of sadness overcomes them, regardless of what exactly their current situation is. Those who have no real problems to worry about, feel the need to worry about the small insignificant things because it justifies this innate feeling of sadness. Many think that feeling sad is a bad thing, or that it somehow needs to be remedied. I disagree; we feel these things to remind us that we are alive, living, breathing creatures; that we have the ability to be compassionate, empathetic, sorrowful, and with that, joyful.

2 Nephi 2: 23 “…having no joy for they knew no misery: doing no good, for they knew no sin” 

I have learned to acknowledge these emotions and allowed them to resonate within me; these emotions are my soul speaking to my body letting me know that I am still alive.