Grateful for Miles

"You have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is every life that you've touched. -- We like to think that these great philanthropic moments are the ones that leave the impact or will make the huge difference in the world, but it's really what you do every day. It's how you use your life to be a light to somebody else," Oprah paraphrases Maya Angelo in this clip.

 Your life and actions matter so much more than you will probably ever come to know. 
Image: pixabay.com

Today's gratitude challenge is asking who family member or a friend I'm grateful for. I did something very similar on Facebook the other day, tagging a couple of family members and friends to tell them how in particular they've affected my life. I chose the kind of things that people might not have realized they've been my role models in. However, I only chose a few people for that and I possibly could've come up a thing or two out of almost all the people on my friends' list.

 But the closest to me, I couldn't even tag as they aren't on Facebook, so this one goes out to my husband, Miles:

 I was 21 when you and I got together. So very young and somewhat clueless, now that I'm looking back. I'm now 32 and I know you've help me to understand myself better more than anyone. You have been patient, understanding, calming, and the voice of reason during these years. You've made me a want to be a better person and therefore my life so much better. Ultimately you made me a mom, which I'm most grateful for you.

 This is your legacy to me, and I know you've affected so many other lives along your way too. Thank you for being you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I removed all of my Instagram followers to feel free to be authentically me

Image
Tonight I removed all of my followers on Instagram. It was a private account with some 200+ followers, but I admit, removing most of them actually hurt. I did it, because Instagram was no longer the social media I began using in July 2012. In the beginning I would only post pictures of our every day life. Whenever my children were in the photos, I would photograph them so that you couldn't see their faces. Then somewhere in the middle I turned my then public account into a private one and started to share more open content. Over the years I've posted nearly 4000 pictures of our every day life. In the end I realized I was looking at the number of people liking my posts rather than the posts and trying to understand why the adorable picture of my kid got three likes, or the actually very beautiful picture of a make-believe satellite received full two likes, while someone's black and white picture of a cake - that would be impossible to understand was cake without the desc
Read more

I heart enough

Image
About a month ago I woke up to my snooze alarm clock. Usually I stay in bed for five minutes with my eyes closed after waking up, thinking about all the good things I expect from the day. That morning though I realized I had been snoozing too much and we were running late, so I jumped out of bed and started dressing up. Suddenly I felt my pulse rising. My heart seemed to be beating out of my chest. As usual, I was wearing my Fitbit, so it was easy to see what the current heart rate was. It was over 170 and I had just woken up. I called my husband, who was on his way to work. I told him something was up with my heart. He said he was coming back home. I asked my 10-year-old daughter to come to talk to me and I had to do something I wish I did not need to impose on her. I told her if I pass out, she should call an ambulance, because my heart was beating way too fast at that moment and I was feeling very vulnerable. She sat on the bed with me and told me to breathe slow. My baby, taking
Read more

Icy rain reveals personality

Image
I was born and raised in Finland and needless to say, I have experienced cold, snowy winters. Ten years ago I moved to the Netherlands and since then I have experienced cold, rainy winters that sometimes turn into warm, rainy winters. Today I happened to be picking up my kids from school just when icy drizzle was scheduled. Yes, I should've dressed everyone in rain proof clothing, but usually we manage that one kilometer in a drizzle no problem. I evaluated the rain wasn't going to bother us too much, but I completely forgot to calculate in the effect of the ice cold rain. My kids have proper rain attire. Too bad I had left it all at home. When we were leaving school, a boat was passing and our bridge was closed. Not to freeze while waiting, I decided it was better to keep on moving, and cycle through another bridge, even though it added half a kilometer. Soon enough the rain had passed both my jacket and the thick sweater underneath and I felt the cold water against
Read more