Smile posts
These are pictures of my two grandmothers, my mother, and me at age 11.
Do you have family photos where the people are smiling, and some where they're not? I wouldn't be surprised if someday someone creates an app that can take a picture of someone not smiling, and through forensic-type regeneration algorithms morph the picture into a picture of the same person smiling and have it look natural. Probably not taking into account bad teeth, or no teeth...but surely our ancestors did smile! They were human after all. Mine were, anyway, ha, ha. (not Fish - I married into Fish)
Here is a
TEDTalk on smiling. It is very interesting.
Take pictures of the people you love - smiling, and cherish those memories. We smile from our memories, and from our thoughts and our feelings. Maybe purring is for cats as smiling is for us. I smile when my cat purrs. He's here now. Do you have family photos that include family pets?
Smile posts - How many times have you said of someone in your family, "Oh my, they've got So&So's smile"? You can see smiles pass down through families and generations.
What was Mona Lisa's inside family joke?
What's important about this life?
This is a link to a TED Talk by a fellow who was in a plane crash, titled Three Things I Learned....
http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html This is an important question for each one of us to ask, and for our ancestors to have asked, and for our progeny to ask themselves. (Have you had
this talk with your children?) Are we writing in our journals and what we leave behind for posterity - the things that matter most? Part of how I decide for myself what is important in this life is by considering what was important to my forebears. Part of how I learned that was by "wishing" that my children would have some consideration of the things I want them to value in their lives by showing my example.
Do we have to have a big traumatic event in our lives to come to this epiphany about what matters most? Time will tell. Human nature, - MY nature is to procrastinate and avoid difficult things. I wonder about my family history - what near misses were averted because my ancestors with ADHD pulled the bacon out of the fire just in time?
I sometimes have felt that I was in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. Here is another short video about using your talents to do some good.
http://wimp.com/barehand/ I believe we can be an instrument in the Lord's hand and that we are planted where we are supposed to bloom. I like a quote I heard was attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
"I will study and get ready and perhaps my chance will come." Do it.
I am struck by the amazing access we have today to research our family history. Please seize the opportunity to talk with your family members who are elderly. Don't live to regret that you did not ask questions and listen to answers, listen with your heart. Do your homework - prepare for those interviews. Also, be part of the solution. Share your research. Someone may be looking for the puzzle piece you are posting!
