“The world we belong to

has taught us to reach deep within to respond to challenges, and we are blessed to teach others how to convert adversities into opportunities.” –Barbara Warren

 

I attended a memorial tribute for my friend Barbara this evening.  It was good.  It was difficult.  It was comforting.  There were at least 500 people in this huge banquet room at a local San Diego hotel.  There was so much love in the room.  And despite the grief that I know we have, there was not this heaviness, or sadness necessarily, but rather simply the peace and beauty and presence of Barbara.  I wept to see her smiling face once again, even if only on two enormous screens at the front of the room.  

Her daughter read something she found in Barbara’s notes which I have to share as I think it will give those of you who were not fortunate enough/blessed to know or cross paths with Barbara an idea of this wonderful woman who was my friend, my mentor, my loving mother:

Barbara wrote:  I spend my life mending people and when I see a heart that is broken, I ask God for the words.  (Barbara was a psychologist.)

Another person, her adopted brother, Larry Pustinger, said she was a ‘magic mirror’ reflecting back to everyone she met the best that was in them. 

There are people in your life who, when they leave, you realize you don’t know how to exist in a world where they don’t.  Eventually, we find a way.

I miss her terribly.

Namaste Barbara.

25% Fewer Feelings

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions.  However, after 2007, this year I made an exception.  This year, I resolved to have 25% fewer feelings about everything.

Maybe that sounds stupid, or weird, or doomed, but I meant well.  I had been flattened by my own impassioned, powerful reactions to things to the point where I made a very conscious decision to get brutally rational about everything.  And when I did get brutally rational about myself, I had no shortage of theories–some lame, some not.  I had a handful of major revelations about some of my ill-advised choices, and the frequency with which I made those choices decreased.  My assumption was this would bring enormous improvements to my life on a bunch of different fronts, as the result of conscious effort, and good for me, right?

Riiiiiiiiiight.  Absolutely.  Do you want to know how many feelings I have had about things, compared to before?  Yeah, it’s about the same.  Because no matter how ’smart’ you get, and no matter how hard you try to give your life rules, there are still going to be things that happen which aren’t going to entirely make sense.   Being ’smart’ doesn’t really mean having fewer feelings about everything, it means tempering them with a little perspective.  When you lose your perspective, that’s when things can get pretty sketchy…

Barbara Warren Tribute

IN TRIBUTE TO AN EXCEPTIONAL WOMAN AND CHAMPION

“The world we belong to has taught us to reach deep within

to respond to challenges, and we are blessed to teach

others how to convert adversities into opportunities”
                                       - Barbara Warren
 
Dear Friends,

We would be honored if you would join us in celebrating Barbara’s life with a tribute to her

memory as our mother, sister, wife and your friend. We believe though her life with us has

ended we want to rejoice and celebrate her spirit, joy and inspiration that lives on inside

those who she touched. Please join us on Sunday, October 5th, at 4pm in the

Riviera Room at the Mission Bay Hilton Hotel with a reception to follow.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and support.
Barbara’s Family
 
Mission Bay Hilton
1775 East Mission Bay Drive
San Diego, CA 92109
(619) 276-4010
Parking is complementary

 

 

 

 

Jim Knight will be doing a solo tribute Ironman in honor of Barbara in San Diego on October 10^th.

www.shadowtour.com

The Subsequent Chapter(s)

Every relationship is an experiment; you never know exactly what you’ll get. Some people/things/experiences bring out a side of you that you didn’t know you had. Some remind you that your story isn’t over. Some surprise you. And once in a while, you surprise yourself. And, although all relationships require compromise, sometimes you get more, not less.  And sometimes, you can’t get more.  Sometimes what you had is gone forever.  And, although it’s painful, you have to find the strength to go on, to keep searching for the love, for that one perfect ingredient, or whatever it is that might have been missing. No matter how far or how deep you have to go to find it. Go to enough extremes and you’ll find a kind of balance.  So it is that my chosen sport (distance running) seems a perfect match for my makeup, my way of ‘being’ if you will.  Most of the time though, I’ve found there’s nothing out there to find, nothing is missing.  I just missed what was here all along.  Still, I enjoy the journey most days.  Never thought one minute of the searching and pushing was all for naught.  

What happens when you live?

I still don’t like recliners.  Those big, fat easy chairs which are supposed to be for relaxing, watching the tube.  They remind me of the ‘barca loungers’ you find in chemo treatment.  So, I have an aversion to a certain type of furniture now.  Weird stuff still comes up post treatment.  Even after leaving the world of gamma rays, masked and gloved people in gowns, chemicals that would require a hazmat crew if spilled, it hasn’t been happily ever after.  My life is fairly normal, if you don’t look closely.   My previous life seems like a dim memory.  Like it was someone else’s life.  What I do know now is that I am mortal.  I can’t unknow that.  And I wish like hell I could.  

Curve Balls

The thing about plans is they don’t take into account the unexpected, so when we’re thrown a curve ball in life, we have to improvise.  Of course, some of us are better at it than others.  And some of us just have to move on to Plan B, and make the best of it.  Sometimes what we want, we can’t have or don’t need.  And sometimes what we want is exactly what we need.  But sometimes, sometimes what we need is a new plan.  We live in a world of worse case scenarios and then we cut ourselves off from hoping for the best because too many times the best doesn’t happen.  But every now and then something extraordinary occurs and suddenly the best case scenarios seem possible.  And every now and then something amazing happens, and against our better judgment, we start to have hope.