Tag Archives: Change and Personal Empowerment

7 Lessons from Four Funerals

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In this season of Thanksgiving and gift giving, when tensions are high and budgets are strained, and food, family, and shopping are on everyone’s mind, I’d like to offer a new perspective for the season, and ultimately for life. Attending four funerals in less than three months teaches you a thing or two about life, if you’re alert and listening.  Let’s learn from those who we have transitioned to the other side and not get side-tracked from what really matters in this fleeting earthly life.  Seven lessons follow:

  1. Spend time with people in ways that bring them joy and happiness. It is a less expensive and ultimately a more lasting gift.
  2. Give those you care about flowers while they can still see and smell them. Flowers don’t have to be physical flowers either.  Give your heart, your love, your time, your attention, your encouragement, and your kindness.
  3. Don’t say things that you may later regret. You’re familiar with the old adage, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything.” There is some good in every single person.  Make it a priority to find that goodness and focus only on it.
  4. Reach out to family and friends. Pick up the phone, write, or visit people.  When you think about them, make an effort to connect with them.  Do what you can to bring your own family closer and let people know how much you care about them.  My son Shawn says that Lil Larry was our family’s Facebook before the internet facebook.  He kept in touch with everyone.
  5. Forgive each other and unite. Create rituals that keep the family unit connected. Ms. Frances called her sisters and children every day just to see how they were and to tell them she loved them.
  6. Say kind words while others can still hear them. At the funeral of Frances Coley, several people commented that they had NEVER heard her say an unkind word about anyone.  Can you say this?    It’s admirable to speak kindly of the dead, but it’s even more meaningful to say nice things of the living.  To be able to speak at all is a divine gift that only we humans have.  So use your words responsibly for they are powerful.
  7. Really care about other people. Be gentle with them and really listen to them.  Jacquelyn Lefton was one of those people who seemed to see your very soul when you were in her presence.  She always spoke softly and gently and looked you right in the eyes and nodded with each word.  You felt like she really heard you and that she fully understood what you were saying.  But more than this, you left her presence feeling like she really cared about you.  Remember, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!”

And finally, remember you can’t attach a U-Haul to a Hearse.  All you take with you and all you leave with others is confined to the heart.

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, visit:  www.thepoetspeaks.com

Give Thanks for the People in Your Life

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Thanksgiving 2010, the Talley family had a different kind of celebration.  Instead of food being the focus, our thoughts were on giving thanks for the people still in our lives and for the life of a very special nephew, Larry Daniel Talley. Lil Larry was killed after being thrown from a motorcycle just a few blocks from his home.  The graphic tribute below was created by his loving niece Indiah.

Ironically, he was taking a final spin before selling his bike that afternoon, but tragically it turned out to be his “final spin.”  And, at the age of 33, he was laid to rest on Friday, November 26, 2010, surrounded by an outpouring of love rarely experienced while one is still alive.

Make Everyone Feel Special

How was he able to attract over 600 people (some say almost 1000 with those who came and left) from around the country to his funeral in less than five days?  I think, probably because everyone who knew him felt his love for them.  He made everyone he knew feel special.  When you were around him, you knew you mattered to him. We affectionately called him ‘Lil Larry,’ but there was nothing little about him, he always had “big tales to tell, a big smile, a big laugh, and an even bigger heart.   He took the time to regularly connect with everyone, family, friends, and strangers alike.  Nothing was more important to him than family, he loved his family, and we knew it.

Don’t Wait to Show You Care

Why do we wait to let people know how much they mean to us until it is too late?  In the funeral service held for Mrs. Frances Barnes two months prior, the choir sang a song that left a lasting impression on me.  The lyrics, “Give me flowers while I can still see them; say kind words to me while I can still hear them,” still ring in my ears because of their profundity.  I learned similarly profound lessons from the lives or deaths of  Lil Larry, Mrs. Frances Coley, and Mrs. Jacquelyn Lefton.  Reflecting on ‘what we remember’ when a loved one passes on offers important lessons for this life and how we should live.  What will people remember about you?  [View a video tribute of  my nephew Lil Larry’s  life]

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, visit:  www.thepoetspeaks.com

You Can’t Attach a U-Haul to a Hearse

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I spent the day after Thanksgiving burying a loved one.  During the past three months, I have attended four funerals and four times I have been “forced” or “privileged” to look at the eventual finality of this earthly sojourn and to put this whole human experience into perspective.  Interestingly, there has been at least one preeminent and recurring lesson through them all: in the end, all that there is, all that matters, is love! [Note: Thing 1(Laylah)- in the picture below is the three-year-old daughter of my nephew who died last week,  Thing 2-(French Pope IV is my grandson.]

How Many Lives Do You Touch?

Love is the glue that connects hearts in this life and in the next.  In the end, no one cares how much money you had or didn’t have, what degrees you had or did not have, what jobs you lost or found, where you lived, what you wore, or what you drove, none of that really matters.  No one cares how much “stuff” you have; because in the end, no one attaches a U-Haul to a hearse.  Love is all that you take with you.  The one with the biggest heart wins!  And, in the end life asks a different set of questions: “How many lives did you touch?” How much love did you give?  How much did you care?  And more importantly, how successful were you in letting people know how much you cared about them?

Don’t Wait to Show You Care

Why do we wait to let people know how much they mean to us until it is too late?  In the funeral service held for Mrs. Frances Barnes two months prior, the choir sang a song that left a lasting impression on me.  The lyrics, “Give me flowers while I can still see them; say kind words to me while I can still hear them,” still ring in my ears because of their profundity.  I learned similarly profound lessons from the lives or deaths of  Lil Larry, Mrs. Frances Coley, and Mrs. Jacquelyn Lefton.  Reflecting on ‘what we remember’ when a loved one passes on offers important lessons for this life and how we should live.  We don’t control our entrants or exits, or when we take our first and last breath. So it would behoove us to get our houses in order.   What will people remember about you?  What will you take with you?

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, visit:  www.thepoetspeaks.com

3. WIN: Redefine What Winning Means

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Who Says Winning or Losing Are the Only Two Options?

In this dichotomous society we give the adventurous only two choices, win or lose.  That means, to win, someone has to lose.  No one likes to lose, so the majority just refuse to play at all and relegate themselves to the mundane, certain, boring, and less challenging pursuits in life.   But you don’t have to play by those rules.

Write Your Own Rules

Define or redefine, or be defined! Write your own definition and rules!  After all you have free will.  You have choice.  You are responsible for you!  Some rules are advantageous to follow, but some are self-limiting.  If the old rules are working for you, keep following them.  If not, CHANGE them!  I refuse to see myself as a loser!  I choose to approach every new opportunity (race) as a new path to unlimited potential possibilities.  I define anyone with enough faith in themselves to pursue their dreams or a challenging opportunity as already a winner!  I define winning as any pursuits that open me up to new possibilities, (different ideas, new opportunities, new ways of thinking and being, diverse people, or new paradigms.)   Now with that definition, I will always win and win big!

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, visit:  www.thepoetspeaks.com

2. WIN: Improve on Your Own Personal Best.

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Practice Makes Perfect

In the old definition of winning, we have to define a target to compete against and overtake that person in order to feel like we’ve won.  What kind of world is that?   Why can’t we just compete against our own personal best?  The answer is, we can! No one starts off  ‘perfect‘ so that doesn’t matter so much.  Just  go ahead and start because it is true that ‘practice  makes perfect.’  You’ve got to start somewhere.  Why not focus your energies on being the best you, doing the best you can, enjoying the ride, and competing only against  your own personal best record.   Strive everyday to “be better” than you were and you will continually grow.  And if constant and steady improvement is not winning, I don’t know what is.

Focus Your Energies on Being Your Best

Why not decide right now to go after whatever it is you truly want that brings real meaning into your life and not worry about who is ahead of you or behind you?  The more races I run, the more worn the paths will become and the easier and faster subsequent races will be. What if your goal were to become a little better every single day?  Wouldn’t that be a lot less stressful, contentious, and conflicting?  So get in the race to improve yourself and ignore the naysayers on the sidelines.  And remember, “You’re winning as long as you are in the race.”

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, visit:  www.thepoetspeaks.com