{"id":10871,"date":"2015-08-10T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T18:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=10871"},"modified":"2015-08-10T11:21:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T18:21:00","slug":"janes-second-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2015\/08\/10\/janes-second-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane’s Second Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jane-headstone\"<\/a><\/h6>\n

Let’s call her Jane. But not Jane Doe. She’s a real person, a friend from years back; but due to moves and changes we’d lost touch. Then, a year and a half ago I came across a grave marker with her name on it.<\/p>\n

How did she die, and when? The oddest thing was that I was in Papua New Guinea. Had Jane been there? I knew her from\u00a0Texas. Had her family sent her body back there for some reason?\u00a0It was a mystery.<\/p>\n

Then, last week I was in Dallas for other business and someone mentioned Jane. \u201cShe’s alive?\u201d I asked. \u201cOf course. She still works here, she’s just left for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u00a0learned\u00a0that she’s now single; her two sons are reaching the age of independence, and she’s doing fine. I got\u00a0her phone number and called her from the airport.<\/p>\n

“Jane? Is that you? Then you ARE alive!”<\/p>\n

I must say her hearty laugh was wonderful to hear as I told my story. It turns out that Jane had served in Papua New Guinea many years ago, during which time she suffered a miscarriage at five months and named the unborn baby after her. She said if I had looked at the date I might have figured it out. But no matter. I recalled Mark Twain’s saying that the rumors of his death were highly exaggerated.<\/p>\n

We continued to laugh and then moved on with\u00a0a brief catching up. She told me of\u00a0the work she’d been doing, experiencing the richest period of her life, spending half of each\u00a0year in Thailand teaching eager students to read. Moreover, she was able to design her own curriculum, something she’s highly capable of doing. Then the program ended.<\/p>\n

So, being the self-appointed life coach that I sometimes am, I jumped right in and said, \u201cNow that you’re not dead after all you have another chance to design your life exactly as you want it!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was all with a big laugh, but I meant it too.<\/p>\n

I told\u00a0my own story of taking a mid-life risk, the initial courage required, the guidance that followed, and the resultant happiness (and sometimes usefulness) since.<\/p>\n

She was listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could devise\u00a0something like Jane’s Mind Opening Literacy for Thailand and Beyond dot Org!\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Or whatever.”<\/p>\n

I went on with how it’s important work, that it’s not being done, not in the way she could do it, not with the people that only she could reach. And there are ways to make it happen, including the financial part.<\/p>\n

Besides,\u00a0she’s at a moment in her life where she’s free to do it. She’s ALIVE!<\/p>\n

It’s great fun to design someone else’s life when no courage\u00a0is required on my part. But I believe Jane has the same amount of courage as anyone else: about one mustard seed’s worth.<\/p>\n

In the end I said I’d call her again in six months . . . just to see what she’s thinking. These are important things to think about.<\/p>\n

(Let me know if you’d also like a call from me in six months.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a humorous story with a happy ending . . . and maybe a word for all of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10871"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10889,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871\/revisions\/10889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}