Have you ever got perspective and what are you grateful for?

Eve_Dublin

Just wondering has this ever happened to anyone. I know we hear the news from around the world, most of it awful and we feel very lucky to be alive and have our health and a roof over our heads but for me personally, it only ever lasts a few minutes.

Then this happened...I was at work teaching one of my classes last Friday and two of my students had terrible news. One was fired from her job and her last day is today. She's Romanian and as there's already a 21% rate of unemployment in Spain, she doesn't have a plan B. She's only about 25 and she was the best student in the class. She absorbed everything taught like a sponge and always made an effort and is a such a lovely person. She was really upset and started to cry, then I got upset about her situation, then we all did and we all had a good auld class cry. Then later in the class I was talking to another student and she told me she also got some bad news. She'd been to the optician on Saturday and she was told she was going to go blind within 2 years.

Everyday I moan about the stupidest, most insignicant stuff but yesterday was like a slap across the face and it hit dawned on me just how lucky I really am and it's stuck with me. I'm really lucky! These are the things I feel grateful for:

Great friends who I trust completely and who've never let me down.

A family who I wouldn't change in a million years and who I love profoundly.

A job

My health...I'm never sick.

Renting a decent apartment in the centre of a beautiful city.

Intelligent enough to do what I want to do but not intelligent enough to feel frustrated with my situation.

Enough money to have a few beers at the weekend and go to Portugal for a few days in a few weeks.

A sense of humour and the ability to enjoy myself.

My education...imagine not being able to read, for example.

Coming from a peaceful, relatively rich nation steeped in culture with people with the best sense of humour in the world.

Intuition that rarely lets me down.

So ladies and gentlemen, have you ever got a dose of perspective? What happened and what did it make you grateful for?

I'm in a good mood today...want to share the positive vibes.....

Wibbs

Good idea Eve_Dublin we have all so much to be grateful for.

If you're western, for the most part you've won the human birth lotto. You have access to so many things that over half the worlds population don't. Well clean water and food for a start. Go into your kitchen now and turn on the tap. So simple, yet a goodly chunk of people just like you haven't got that and half the world's population will go to bed hungry tonight.. Look back on your life and think about the times you needed and got medical attention. You may have even died if you hadn't gotten it. I recall a thread on AH where people discussed this and a large percentage may not have seen 18 without medical attention. If you had been born in the third world you wouldn't. And that's just the rest of the world.

For most of human history lives as Hobbes wrote were nasty, brutal and short. Most of us reading this if we look at our lives objectively are very lucky most of the time.

Azureus

The recession-buzz thats been going on the last few years makes me really appreciative for everything I have to be honest. The reason is that I was lucky enough to have a working class family who were never infected by the keeping up with the joneses symptoms that the Celtic Tiger gave to a lot of people. My mother now owns her own modest house after years of working for what she has and has nothing on credit and we are without debt. Thats a lot to be thankful for right now!

LittleBook

I'm grateful for so many things but the most tangible one these days is that I'm thankful I returned to Ireland when I did because the timing was perfect ... my daughter started secondary school in first year and hasn't looked back since, if we'd returned a little later it could have been so much harder for her ... the property bubble burst literally the month after we came back, fully intending to buy here. If we'd returned a few months earlier we might have panicked and bought like so many others.

You've reminded me of an e-mail I got a coupla days ago. I usually hate these things but this one struck a chord as there are several that are particularly pertinent to me:

I am thankful for the husband who is on the sofa being a couch potato
Because he is home, with me

For his snoring in the darkest hours before the dawn
Because he is in bed, with me

For the teenager who is complaining about doing dishes
Because it means she is at home, not on the streets

For her incessant babble about things I can't relate to
Because it means she is still confiding in me

For the job that sometimes bores me and the taxes I pay
Because it means I am employed

For the mess I have to clean after a dinner party
Because it means I have been surrounded by friends

For the clothes that fit a little too snugly
Because it means I have enough to eat

For the pile of ironing and laundry
Because it means I have lots to wear

For a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing, hoovering that needs to be done, bathroom that needs to be cleaned
Because it means I have a home

For all the complaining I hear about the government
Because it means we have freedom of speech

For the bus that's always 10 minutes late and full
Because it means I am capable of walking and have been blessed with transportation

For my huge heating bill
Because it means I am warm

For weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day
Because it means I have been capable of working hard

For the alarm that goes off too early in the morning
Because it means I am alive

ElleEm

I was diagnosed with MS out of the blue in October, and my body literally fell apart within two weeks of this. I had so many symptoms that affected EVERY aspect of my life.
So today, I am grateful for;

*The ability to walk without struggle
*The ability to see, without blurred vision
*The ability to have so much energy that I don't need to nap during the day
*The ability to lift things, hold a pen/ knife/ fork without losing grip
*The ability to go outside alone, without needing to hold onto someone for support

This is a good thread for me. The last 6 months have given me a HUGE lesson in perspective. There are loads of people out there worse off than me!

Eve_Dublin

ElleEm wrote: »

I was diagnosed with MS out of the blue in October, and my body literally fell apart within two weeks of this. I had so many symptoms that affected EVERY aspect of my life.
So today, I am grateful for;

*The ability to walk without struggle
*The ability to see, without blurred vision
*The ability to have so much energy that I don't need to nap during the day
*The ability to lift things, hold a pen/ knife/ fork without losing grip
*The ability to go outside alone, without needing to hold onto someone for support

This is a good thread for me. The last 6 months have given me a HUGE lesson in perspective. There are loads of people out there worse off than me!

Oh man! You've got me started again. Perspective left, right and centre. I have to say, I really admire people like you who can cope with that and still be so positive. I'm getting all Oprah winfrey here but it's inspiring.

ElleEm

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

Oh man! You've got me started again. Perspective left, right and centre. I have to say, I really admire people like you who can cope with that and still be so positive. I'm getting all Oprah winfrey here but it's inspiring.

I'm mad for a bit of Oprah myself!!
I always made a conscious decision to be thankful for things in my life, and aimed to keep things in perspective, but the MS thing has taught me to appreciate the simple things in life. There's nothing like a good disease to remind you of the fragility of life

sam34

a few weeks back I was moaning about taxes, weather etc when one of my best friends got ill suddenly and later that day was told he had a life- threatening condition. he had surgery a few days later, which was make- it- or-break- it surgery and thankfully it went really well and he has literally been given his life back.

really gave me a sense of perspective about things.

Madame Razz

I think what happened in Japan recently very much put into perspective for me that while Ireland is in the ****ter economically, things could be a lot worse, and for most of us life is going on as normal, albeit with less money, but it's still going on, we still live, breathe, and enjoy our life. A tsunami is a hell of a lot worse than any bail out or lack thereof.

Poor Craythur

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

Intelligent enough to do what I want to do but not intelligent enough to feel frustrated with my situation.

This is interesting and is the part of your post that jumped out at me. Say more things about this.

Ickle Magoo

I am given perspective daily regarding what my life could have been like had I not been adopted by people willing to put the time and effort into showing me I had potential.

I work as an adult education tutor and I think it's quite humbling to know that the reason I'm on the other side of the desk is down to good fortune and being afforded the opportunity.

boomkatalog

I am constantly giving out about my three brothers. The eldest because I never see him, the next oldest because he can be so undependable, he drives like an idiot and I don't like his behaviour this past year regarding who he hangs out with it etc. And my younger brother because, well, 14 year olds are a pain in the ass.

This time last year I attended the funeral of a boy who was the younger brother of a girl I knew. He was only 22, a really bright, kind-hearted guy, volunteered with St. Vincent De Paul, helped his elderly parents around on their farm, really tried to do everything for everyone. He was killed instantly in a car crash on his way home from work to help with the cattle.

What makes this all the more sad, is that this family lost their only other son/brother almost exactly a year before. He was 19, and he committed suicide in college.

My heart absolutely aches for that girl, her sister and her parents, to have lost the two boys, so young, and in such close proximity like that. It's truely heartbreaking and I feel so selfish saying this but when I heard, I sobbed because I felt so awful for her, but partly because I was so glad not to be standing in her shoes.

For all my moaning and complaining, I love them so much and I would be absolutely devastated if anything ever happened to them. And I'll try to remember that the next time they leave the bathroom in a state.

LittleBook

Wibbs wrote: »

the human birth lotto.

Ah yes, the birth lotto, we really don't appreciate the amount of luck involved in simply being born, wherever that may be.

If you ever feel you're not a lucky person, just read the intro (read the rest if you can!) of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" ...

Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you.

And don't even get me started on how lucky we are that the Universe happened AT ALL! :eek:

Ickle Magoo

LittleBook wrote: »

And don't even get me started on how lucky we are that the Universe happened AT ALL! :eek:

Well, we're not really lucky the universe happened at all - if it had happened differently we might just have been clouds of conciousness discussing this via telepathy instead! :pac:

metrovelvet

I got perspective when I recovered from serious illness. When I actually was ill, I just wanted assisted suicide. I didnt feel that lucky.

Yes, born in the west. Couldnt get luckier than that.

And when a friend of mine died at 33 of pancreatic failure. He had a two year old son that he left behind and I had found his biological mother for him a year before his death, and she had to lose him all over again, but he found her in the nick of time I guess, and I was grateful that I was a part of that reunion.

I was grateful on a French roundabout when the brakes failed that there were no other cars on the road. Me and my son would have been dead if there were and chances are other people too.

Oh and another time I was due to be in the Abruzzi, but I checked the weather forecast and decided not to go. That was the same week as the earthquake.

That, my fathers death, and 911, all have made me somewhat grateful for my sense of impatience, in that we have sooo little time... be grateful for what is left.

Eve_Dublin

Poor Craythur wrote: »

This is interesting and is the part of your post that jumped out at me. Say more things about this.

I don't want to derail the thread because I'm really enjoying hearing from everyone else. I suppose I've learned what my limitations are intelligence-wise. I'm more intelligent than I thought I was and surprised myself over the years but I'm also realistic about what I'm not capable of. I don't have the attitude that I can do anything. I'm grateful for this because I'm in a job now that I know others would see as a stop-gap (TEFL)...I've even had some people say to me that I couldn't possibly do it long-term (because they couldn't imagine doing it long-term themselves....they'd be high achievers) but everyday I feel I use what I'm good at...my types of intelligence and I enjoy it. I feel very capable in what I'm doing and don't feel in over my head or bored because it's not challenging enough for me. Other people with a higher level of certain kinds of intelligence might feel frustrated in my shoes but I don't. I'm grateful for that.

Kya1976

Great thread OP.:)

My (half)sisters brother was killed in a train accident May last year, and I'm so grateful that I managed to rebuild my relationship with her when that happened.
I got no time for petty stupid family arguments anymore.....

mariebeth

Great thread idea OP.

I guess for me, I got perspective about 9 years ago when my first cousin died at the age of 33, leaving two beautiful little girls without a mother and her husband without a wife. While I wasn't particularly close to her, she was 16 years older than me, I do think of her a lot when I hear people complain about getting old or that it's their birthday & they are a year older.

I always say that we should be grateful for every year that we get, that we honestly don't know what will happen in the future. I think my cousins death has really made me appreciate just how fragile and important our lives are, and that if we want something we should go for it instead of making plans to do it in the future.

36Degrees

I recently suffered a serious asthma attack out of the blue. It came on me very quickly with little symptoms. I have never had asthma before, the doctor says it was caused by a virus. I had to be hospitalised for five days, and am currently on a whole load of medication to heal my lungs. Having experienced the terrifying feeling of truly not being able to breathe properly or talk without getting out of breath, I am thankful for my past good health, and also my improving health as the medications do their job. I am also thankful that this happened while I was at home with my parents, and not when I was out alone or with acquaintences or out of the country. I am extremely lucky to live a 20 minute drive from the nearest hospital - if the attack had gone on for much longer I probably would have collapsed and gone into respiratory failure :eek: I have never needed to rush to a&e before, and so I never really thought about the merits of living so close to a hospital. Really, I am thankful that I was able to treated quickly and efficeintly by an excellent team of a&e nurses & doctors. I realise now that if I happened to be born in another country, this may have not been the case and I could be dead now!
I honestly will never take my health for granted again, and having experienced it, I feel so sad for people who have to live with lung or breathing problems - feeling like you can't fill your lungs with air, no matter how deeply you breathe, is a scary scary thing.

Crumble Froo

After the earthquake in Christchurch in September, I lost most of my possessions and didn't care a bit. When I was legging it the **** out the door after a large chunk of one of the walls had fallen in and next door was reduced from 2 storeys to one, I wasn't thinking about any of them. I knew my friends were safe, I had my pet rat, and a phone to get in touch with other people. Gave me a whole new sense of perspection on possessions and their worth. Standing outside even, the whole day, the others were risking going back in for their stuff and I just generally refused - I didn't want or need any of it. Grabbed my blanky after a bit, and am glad I eventually went and got my clothes (pretty much all my tshirts are from gigs I've been to), but I really decided I didn't want or need any of it then - like the lyrics that got me into music when I was 12, "There's no money, there's no possessions, only obsession, and I don't need that shít".

Later, in February, the second earthquake hit and this time close to 200 people died, many were injured and... well. Whole new perspective on how much I love my friends, how much they mean to me, how lucky I am for the people I do have in my life. Really appreciated what I had, as well as the further challenge of living with no real income, power, clean water or fire (after a week, there was an area-wide fire ban, due to the weather, and the lack of resources available to deal with the extra threat). Really gave us an appreciation of just how lucky we were, that for us, dealing with things being hard was just daily life in so many parts of the world, that we have portaloos and clean water being shipped and flown in from all over the world to help us for the few months where we dont have it, when there's so many all over the world that dont have access to any such privileges.

I think over the years, there's been several events in my life or that have impacted on my life that have changed my perspective and made me appreciate things in a different light, but I suppose the quake's been the most recent change into my way of seeing things.

boomkatalog

Also anyone looking for some perspective should look at this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055750426
Read through it for ages yesterday and it broke my heart. There's a lot of amazing and devastating stories behind those pictures.

Sibylla

It's incredibly important to have perspective in your life. Today a friend was moaning about how her parents cannot afford to send her abroad this year because of the economic downturn, At the same time I was reading a gruesome story about the mistreatment of women in Libya. Yes we are in a recession but we are still a relatively rich country. We have so much to be thankful for. We have our freedom and rights which is more than some.
We take the simplest things for granted, Being able to do make our own choices, Being educated, sometimes we need to pause for a second and focus on how lucky we really are. Someone close to me had a serious health scare and since then I've always tried to appreciate how lucky I am.

Dudess

Whoopsa, you really are inspirational... x

Ah jaysis thanks

metrovelvet

Deleted User wrote: »

Ah jaysis thanks

You are amazing.

Acoshla

Dudess wrote: »

Whoopsa, you really are inspirational... x

+1 to this whoopsadaisydoodles, I had seen lots of your general random cheerful posts and your cute name over a long period of time and then out of nowhere one day I read one about your children, I nearly cried (that's like a regular person actually crying, I never cry).

I really admire you, especially that you managed to find a positive to what happened. Pretty much every time I see your name I get perspective.

The Sweeper

I work in cancer services.

My job is to make sure that people who've been diagnosed with cancer have proper end-to-end care of all of their needs - clinical and supportive, so not just chemo and radiation, but also the option to see whoever is relevant out of a long list including dieticians, podiatrists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, counsellors, someone relevant to their religion, so on, so forth.

So every evening I get in the door from work I have perspective and reason to be thankful for what I have.

However the flip side is that the last four years haven't been easy for me - major migration, separation from immediate family and friends, serious home issues with the in-laws, natural disasters in the shape of huge bushfire, death of a dear parent, husband deciding to join the army in his mid thirties, pronounced isolation due to living arrangements facilitating job and husband's career choice and so on and the knock-on effects of all of those things.

So what I'm most thankful for is that somewhere in the last thirty-something years, I gained the wisdom to understand that while I have a huge amount to be thankful for, it's also okay every so often to feel blue.

Yes, when things are hard there is almost certainly someone, somewhere out there who has it worse than you, but it's still okay to be sad, or to get angry, as long as I am not clinging to that sadness or anger like some sort of emotional misery life-raft, and as long as I'm not inflicting my unhappiness or anger unduly on other people, because this is my life, and I'm the only person who can make the changes that matter in it.

beks101

Deleted User wrote: »

The day my two beautiful children were taken from me. It changed my life, obviously for the worse, but also for the good, it made me a better person. A couple of weeks after my car crash there was another car crash, a man lost his children and his wife. So I know there is always some worse off. Always. I'll still moan and groan about ridiculously trivial things, but that's human nature.

I am grateful for my husband, who could easily have been taken that day too. I may not be grateful for his grumpiness mind you!
I am grateful for my amazing daughter that was born 5 days before the first anniversary of the accident and played a huge part in getting me through the tough times.
I am grateful for my parents, they are the most amazing people and I adore them
I am grateful for my huge group of friends, they really and truly are the best friends anyone could ever imagine
I am grateful for my health, I've never been physically sick.
I am grateful for my job, I love it and I get a wage at the end of ever month, not everyone is as lucky.
I am grateful that I have a nice house to live in.
I am grateful that I am lucky enough to have a positive attitude, I would not be able to cope with life without it!

This is mine. This brought tears to my eyes. The resilience some people exude just blows my mind, you're one of them. You're an inspiration.

Eve_Dublin

I don't know your story Woopsy but the post above was enough to bring tears to my eyes.I can only imagine that what you went through was hell. As Beks said above, the resiliance of some people out there...I don't even know how to put this into words...you're living saints. You learnt your own lesson through all this and it made you stronger but you probably don't realise how your experience, your resiliance and your strength affects others. It's a knock on effect and makes me grateful for all I have. I can be very self-indulgent sometimes with self-pity and these kinds of stories snap me out of it, so thank you.

Maple

Dudess wrote: »

Whoopsa, you really are inspirational... x

metrovelvet wrote: »

You are amazing.

Spadina wrote: »

I really admire you, especially that you managed to find a positive to what happened. Pretty much every time I see your name I get perspective.

QFT

I cannot express how much I admire you. I do not know how you've had the strength and courage to come through what you have and to still be the cheery positive person that you are.

You are an exceptional human being.

Maple

Two of the many things that give me perspective are;

- waking up in hospital and being grateful for being alive.

- every time my sister has a seizure. Every time I pray that she makes it through it without brain damage or dying. I hate having to give her the epistatus, it's foul stuff and she fights it every time, but we have to because of the severity of her epilepsy. I hate standing there watching her come around, hoping that she does, I hate timing her seizures in case we have to call an ambulance or just bundle her into the car and get her to A&E. I hate watching her suffer the side effects of her medicine, but most of all I hate that I can't wrap her up in cotton wool and keep her safe. She is so brave and true, every time I look at her I get perspective.

The things I am grateful for are;

My freedom and independence
My family
My gorgeous nieces
My wonderful friends
My brain & talents
My job which challenges me and pays me enough so that I am kept safe & warm in a lovely apartment, pay my bills and have the occasional treat
My sense of humour
My sense of compassion
My strength
The fact that I have finally gained enough perspective in life to acknowledge myself as a decent human being and to give myself a break when I cock up.

Limerickgal82

Deleted User wrote: »

The day my two beautiful children were taken from me. It changed my life, obviously for the worse, but also for the good, it made me a better person. A couple of weeks after my car crash there was another car crash, a man lost his children and his wife. So I know there is always some worse off. Always. I'll still moan and groan about ridiculously trivial things, but that's human nature.

I am grateful for my husband, who could easily have been taken that day too. I may not be grateful for his grumpiness mind you!
I am grateful for my amazing daughter that was born 5 days before the first anniversary of the accident and played a huge part in getting me through the tough times.
I am grateful for my parents, they are the most amazing people and I adore them
I am grateful for my huge group of friends, they really and truly are the best friends anyone could ever imagine
I am grateful for my health, I've never been physically sick.
I am grateful for my job, I love it and I get a wage at the end of ever month, not everyone is as lucky.
I am grateful that I have a nice house to live in.
I am grateful that I am lucky enough to have a positive attitude, I would not be able to cope with life without it!

Truly Inspirational ......... Even though i had tears in my eyes as i read it .. you showed me that nothing should be taken for granted.. thank you

Dudess

Deleted User wrote: »

Ah jaysis thanks

Don't be a bit thankful darl - you're just wonderful. Always so happy and positive, yet not afraid to get a wee bit feisty if it's warranted (although I don't think you could possibly be a REALLY cross biatch :pac:) which shows there's absolute sincerity there.
Like others, your story moved me to tears - and The Sweeper makes a very good point: nothing wrong with feeling down once in a while, even if there's always someone worse off. We're humans and we're allowed to feel sad/pissed off/both - sometimes it's actually good for us to vent... as long as it doesn't get on top of us and others.

Anyway, agreed with Maple - you're exceptional. And you and your story are what give me perspective and make me appreciative of the beauty and goodness that's out there...

CathyMoran

woopsadaisydoodles - I can not read your story without welling up with tears.

I am greatful to be still alive (though I do get scared every day that "it" is back). I am a 4 and a tiny bit year oesophageal cancer survivor and have been determined to live my life even though I have limitations. I have a wonderful husband who means everything to me and son with a daugher on the way (hopefully) - when I was diagnosed I did not think that I would live past the surgery let alone become a mother. My little family mean everything to me.

Kaffy

Last night in work a friend told me his new baby boy was just diagnosed with a hole in his heart and has to have surgery!

That gave me the perspective and the kick up the bum to realise all the stuff ive been sad and depressed about is stuff I can change and is not worth getting upset over!

Good luck Harry on monday xx

m'lady

Wow, reading all there amazing stories about people who are so strong and inspirational has made me cry and be so thankful for what I have in my life. I have a fabulous,cheeky and beautiful daughter who I give out about sometimes,but she is my life and I have a brilliant partner who may p*** me off at times, but I love him. We may not have much money right now, but we have one another, and for that I'm so grateful and happy.

KittyeeTrix

I too am grateful for my things in life. We are a family of 4 who are struggling financially at the moment as my husband is unemployed and I am about to enter my 4th year of a science degree............

That said, we have food, a roof over our heads and we all have great health...

I guess I am one of the lucky ones as I was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix when pregnant with my 4th child. This was after the 2 middle children were born prematurely but thankfully were okay and are today teenagers:) It all could've been very much different....

Women like Cathy and Whoopsadaisydoodles are truly amazing and I mean that deeply..............Fair play to ye girls as ye have been through experiences that would've destroyed many others. Hugs and the very best wishes for the future to ye both

psycho-hope

I'm grateful I have a family who loves me, a Boyfriend who means the world to me, some mad but loveable friends, and a mother who raised me on her own and made me the person I am today, oh and thanks great gran Bridget for passing on the cooking gene to me:D

Chinafoot

The death of my 21 year old cousin last year put a lot of things in perspective for me. Cancer is a bitch and he was far, far too young to die like that.

It really showed me how precious life is and that we have absolutely no idea whats around the the corner. Life is for living right now.

I'm grateful for my wonderful, supportive parents.
My amazing boyfriend that loves me completely.
Having a job that I (mostly) love.
My good friends that I know will be there if I need them.
I'm also grateful for the common sense to walk away from certain people who drag you down in life and bring nothing but negativity. Life is too short to drink bad wine, as they say

watna

It was a random Tuesday morning and I was at work. My OH was due to collect my engagement ring from the jeweller later that day. The jeweller rang me to say it was ready but had some bad news about what he could do with the ring (it's made with my OH's mum's diamond so there was limitations on what we could do) and I was so disappointed. I was a bit sad about being away from home for the whole engagement excitement as well so I burst in to tears and was feeling really sorry for myself.

At about 1 I came out of a meeting to find out that a big earthquake had hit Christchurch and buildings had collapsed so there would definitely be people killed. Never have I felt so guilty for being upset about something so trivial. It was a short sharp shock to cop on to myself and be greatful for what I had. Was so happy to get my ring and give me OH a hug and be greatful that we were ok - the earthquake could easily have been where I live.

DeadlyTwig

I lost someone very close to me a few months ago. He was very young and the whole family were in disbelief, pain and shock. We're a very close family and it affected every single one of us. My parents were pillars of strength. I honestly don't know where they found the ability to support everyone when they were grieving too. They literally held everyone together

I am thankful for my mam and dad and the endless love, support and kindness they show to people.
I am thankful that my family are in good health and are coping as well as can be expected.
I am thankful that although the death was tragic, it gave me a new perspective on life and family and brought us even closer.
I am thankful that I knew him and that he played a large part in who I am today.

One of my sisters often tell us of the time she was 19 and in college she didnt have much money and was at the still at the teenage faze of thinking that parents ( our widowed mother in this case ) were just there in the background to provide for you, my mother was wasn't well off at all but as my sister always said she'ed find a fiver for you somewhere if you relay needed it....

Anyway she became good friends with a girl in college whose mother was an alcoholic and she realized that her friend could never rely on her mother for anything...my sis alway say that was the first time she began to see out mother as a person and understood how she always tried her best for us.

UCD2010

I'm a student stressed out over exams, job prospects, boyfriends and the impact the recession is having on my family but I listened to this podcast and things were immediately put into perspective for me. I'm sure many of you have heard this on the Ray D'Arcy show. I think this is the most heart-wrenching story Ive ever heard. I was in tears through out and I don't cry that easy!

http://www.todayfm.com/Shows/Weekdays/Ray-DArcy-Show/PodcastAudio.aspx

Listen to the podcast titled: Nuala Doyle - in memory of her son Carl

All my love and respect goes out to the Doyle family.. x