I’m currently cleaning my notes and I wrote this 11/15/2016 (Happy Birthday Mama), when this blog was gonna be called ‘Asamatterofjacq’ LOL. What a time. Anyway, here we go.

When all else fails, love.

And when you feel like love has failed, love again. Because you deserve it. Forgive people who haven’t even apologized…

Because you deserve it. 

Maybe they hurt you on purpose, maybe they had no idea their actions would hurt you. Placing blame is less important than moving on. You only get one chance, there are no do-overs to this life thing. One chance, why be miserable? Forgive and move on.

Because you deserve it. 

Don’t forget anything and don’t allow yourself to be fooled the same way over and over. Don’t be victimized and allow trials to run your life.

As I watched my grandmother go through cancer for the third time, she was a prisoner in her body and her mind. Early-onset dementia racked her brain at night, but the demons she never let go of consumed her. I’d experienced dementia with my great-grandmother 7 years prior and though she didn’t remember, she had a sense of peace. My point isn’t to compare their circumstances. No one can understand what it must’ve felt like for my grandmother to have to battle cancer for the third time in her life, but this time she wasn’t completely there to fight it. She battled her demons for a long time and the dementia was bringing them front and center. She was bruised and never allowed herself to love again.

But she deserved it. 

We never know.

Forgive.

Because you deserve it.

Love again always and hard.

Because you deserve it.

That money is nothing without people to share it with. And yes family is amazing, but we all should feel the love of a partner, the warmth of a body next to ours at night when it’s cold, the caress of a tender touch – that intimacy.

Because we deserve it.