Birthdays

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Satchel Paige, legendary baseball pitcher

On July 11th, 1945, less than two months before the end of WWII, in a small, questionably clean hospital delivery room in Ardmore, Oklahoma, I was born. The doctor was out fishing at the time, but managed to appear shortly before my 10:10 am birth. My dad was a Captain in the US Air Force and had asked his commander to postpone his immediate transfer to McDill Air Force Base in Florida in order to be nearby for at least the first several days after by birth. 

My parents, Leon and Winnie, had enjoyed some years of alone-couple-time prior to my arrival so the timing was right but who would have guessed that a little less than nine years later, our family would have shrunk to just my dad and me with a 34-year-old wife and mother dead before her time. No one knows what life will bring. I learned very early that death is real and our time on this earth can be cut short at any minute. That knowledge has caused me to strive to live life to the fullest and appreciate every moment.

Affirmation: I am joyfully and fully alive.

Coaching questions: What have you learned from the traumas of your life? What difference has that understanding made?