The neatest thing happened to me this weekend that made me take some deep breaths of GRATITUDE.  I reconnected with two very special old friends-Bobby and Scottie.  Now known as dads, husbands, successful men and- Bob and Scott.  What?  What happened to the little boys that I hung out with every single day growing up in our safe and quaint neighborhood?  They grew up-and the coolest thing is I DID TOO!

I have thought of these boys so many times throughout life because they were my family, my childhood.  They were the ones that allowed me to be “normal” growing up and helped me to LIVE.  Every time I was on the bottom of the football pile in the front yard, every time we stayed outside until it was too dark to see each other building our snow fort, they helped me LIVE.  They never treated me different; I was just Dottie who lived at 110.  They also pushed me along when limitations were visible-they didn’t allow me to have them and even at a young age, I was so grateful for that-even more so now looking back.

I haven’t spoken to Scottie yet (sorry guys, you will ALWAYS be Bobby and Scottie to me) but I did have the absolute pleasure of talking to Bobby yesterday afternoon for about 2 hours on the phone.  I missed his first phone call but when I heard his voice on my VM I literarily jumped up and down and screamed-it was like I was back at 10 yrs old waiting to go out and play!  And the first thing Bobby said once we did get on the phone brought me back to a place of such pride and gratitude once again.  We said hi, screamed each other’s name and then started to laugh with joy.  And all of a sudden Bobby stopped, paused and said “Oh My God, you are laughing and not having a coughing fit, I can’t believe it” I stopped in my tracks also at the amazement of his surprise.  It had been 16 beautiful years for me since my double lung transplant since I had to worry about laughing because my breath would immediately get stolen away with a huge coughing fit trying to catch my breath but Bobby and I have not been in touch for over 20 years….

I could feel the joy from him through the phone and we talked about the absolute miracle and also how he would ask his mom and another mom in the neighborhood all the time, “Have you heard how Dottie is” and how his breath would always be held until he got an answer.  Sometimes it was “Not too good she is in the hospital I heard” or “She is doing a little better, hanging in”.  Bobby told me he just never thought he would see me again and always remembered as children he was told his friend would probably never grow up.  We laughed so hard as I thanked him for helping me “live” and all the joy he gave during those many years.  He remembered how he would pull me around in the heavy, deep snow on a sled, falling, then getting back up to “pull the queen”  SO FUNNY!   He was superman and I was Wonder Woman! We laughed and laughed.  He talked about remembering how I hated getting called inside to drink my shake or have therapy but also how they just “waited for me to come back out and jump in the game” **There is a lesson here-“do the things that aren’t so fun or what you have to do to overcome your challenges and then ‘GET BACK IN THE GAME” Don’t live by your challenges, live with and through them!  And that is what I somehow managed to do and it has paid off.  I am here and so excited to see these boys this summer-it will be an amazing day and we will never ever lose tough again.

As I got off the phone I thought about how much joy and peace this re connection gave me and as I told Bobby on the phone when we spoke about the ‘old days” I couldn’t have done it alone.  There is no way I would’ve found the motivation or strength many times to get up after feeling so tired from a long night of shortness of breath or headaches to go out and “play” if it was not for the JOY I found in those moments-that they helped me have.  Every day I got up, or went back out after a long chest PT session, and played…I was winning my battle against this worthy opponent called Cystic Fibrosis.  And, I fought to be a normal kid because I was determined to live as normal of a life as I could despite what everything and everyone that was trying to tell me different.  And it paid off.

So today I ask you to press your feet firmly in the ground and do whatever it is you have to to live the life that you want and deserve. Keep getting back up and back in the game. Embrace the people who support you and raise you up, let go of the people who want to pull you down or limit you.  Bobby raised me up on his shoulders so many times when we played, when I was tired, when life seemed hard. He helped me see a way where I could continue-we figured it out together.  Let others help raise you up and better yet, help raise others up.  For none of us can do it alone but…we CAN do it!

Live your life- with every breath you have,

Dottie

*Thank You to my neighborhood crew who helped me LIVE.  Fredia, Bobby, Scottie, Ronnie Jean….