Perseverance: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: The action or condition or an instance of persevering. Steadfastness.
“Sweet with love and true endurance, strong with will and perseverance.” This is a line from a poem I wrote in 1975, it was a Christmas gift for my kids’ fraternal grandma. I had it printed on what looked like old parchment paper, the font was kinda old English and then framed it. It was the last Christmas she ever had, she had breast and throat cancer. I loved that lady. She was so strong and so brave through the whole thing while still raising the last four of her eight kids! This poem sat on her coffin at her funeral. ☹
Perseverance was truly a quality she had. She continued on despite the difficulties and pain of her cancer. I watched my mother do the same, throughout her whole life. She persevered through loss, abuse, poverty and several husbands! She pretty much mostly always kept her head up and kept on going, she continued to thrive right up until her fall and then death three weeks later. She too was a breast cancer and throat cancer survivor.
The reason I’m thinking of perseverance is because of the historic rover landing on Mars this last week, February 18th, 2021. I think they picked a great name for the rover, for the mission actually. It’s all about space travel and knowledge of life “out there” which, continues to be a mission our country pursues. That’s cool.
I think we are all tasked with the mission of continuing on, staying clean (sober), doing what we can on this planet to heal. To heal us, our loved ones who endured our insanity, to heal within our communities and the planet as a whole. Recovery has taught me a basic principle of leaving it better than you found it. I don’t know how close I am to getting to that, but Lord knows I try.
If you are an addict in recovery, I know for a fact that you have persevered many problems, crisis, losses and issues in your time on this planet. There is a familiar saying in the twelve-step programs, “let it begin with me”. I think that would apply to the state of affairs in our world as well as, right here in our own homes. I can’t change the whole world, but if I keep at it, keep persevering, maybe I can – with God’s help- change me for the better and thereby, affecting a change in the lives of the people I live with, the people I hang with and the lives of people I touch, no matter how small, just keep moving forward.
This topic also plays into the last couple of weeks blogs, in that, we did not quit five minutes before the miracle and our gratification had been delayed pending our vaccine shots. We are now all vaccinated and starting to feel a little bit of freedom coming back to us. We have to wait about two weeks they say to be fully vaccinated, but we have begun our return to “normalcy” in very small ways. Yay!
Our boy got to spend the week-end with his cousins, he is having so much fun and we are getting a little break. Can’t wait for school to start, lol. We also ate inside of a restaurant on the lake, on our way home, woe, that’s a biggie! It wasn’t crowed and we stayed away from others. It was relaxing. We are super thankful for the vaccines and for living long enough to be able to get them. Many people did not.
We lost another friend two days ago, a man that was my son’s best friend since kindergarten until a couple of years ago when their addictions put a wedge between them. He died from Covid, but his body was beat down with drugs and diabetes that he pretty much did not take care of in addiction. We die in our disease in so many ways.
We will continue to persevere as long as we have breath, life and a good thought in our minds and hearts, I hope you do too. God bless you all, stay strong, well and safe so that you can continue on, persevering for yourself, your family and the next newcomer that needs to see that it can be done. Hope springs eternal- don’t give up my peeps.
Question of the Week: What did you have to persevere through in addiction? Are you persevering through the pandemic and staying clean and working on your recovery? Are you staying strong and looking forward to getting back to your life the way you’d like it to be?