Sans Teeth, Sans Eyes, Sans Taste, Sans Everything.

     Life is so good to me. I come from a family of 11. I have four brothers and four sisters. I love the new unexpected challenges that come every single day. Life is always changing. I'm always planning and preparing for the next big part in my life. Life seems so occupied with thoughts of tomorrow. I am an undergraduate at Brigham Young University graduating this year in Exercise Science. 
     I have a grandma with dementia and she has the personality of a little three year old girl. It seems like she's returned to her childhood in an old body. It reminds me of words spoken in Shakespeare's  As You Like It, where Jaques gives the well known "All the Worlds a Stage" speech.
  

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


     I see my sweet grandmother in this second childishness. Although I have my teeth, and eyes, and taste I often forget how good I truly have it. Last semester I had a teacher, Dr. Reese, who has been one of the most influential educators in my life because of his passion for life and learning. One day he stopped his lecture but did not stop his teaching. He said, "If you are not happy right now in your life you will never ever be happy." That really impressed me. He was in the sixth stage... a world too wide for his shrunken shank, and he had lived a very "strange and eventful history. " 
     Steven Coallier once made a comment, fit for his profession as an offensive tackle for the Packers,"Attack life it's going to kill you anyway." Well said Steve. Life is too good for us to not give it our all. We might not be the smartest, most attractive, most talented person among our friends but why not  stop occupying our thoughts with self pity, and selfishness and fill them with compassion and service. Act. Do. Work. Play. Change. Give someone a hug. Forgive someone. Make a new friend. Compliment a stranger. Hold the door for them. Buy that chocolate candy bar from the girl knocking on your door so she can go on her orchestra trip. Smile because, "A man in his time plays many parts."