Words to Live By
Words to Live By
| There are special phrases that stick in your mind.
I call them golden “nuggets” for they are thoughts that have power and
give strength and understanding when it’s most needed.
I remember during a time of grief, a stranger told me he always looked at parting as “graduation.” When you think of attending a graduation, it means change, but it also foretells promise of a new and wonderful time to come. Producer/writer/actor Stephen Cannell, the man who scripted or created such hits as “The Rockford Files,” “Wise Guy,” “21 Jump Street,” and two dozen more TV series, told me this true experience. |
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“I was young and in the middle of pilot season when a friend, Sam,
came to me and told me his wife was dying of cancer. We went out for coffee
and talked. He went his way, and I continued working on the pilot. I got
the news his wife died, and I called him with the “it’s a blessing” sentence
we all say. We’ll get together soon, right now I’m so busy. We’ve all given
that excuse.”
“Several years later, after my son died, I found my house full of people. Ben Vereen flew in from New York, at his own expense, to sing at the funeral, Robert Blake, who I hadn’t seen in years, was in the kitchen washing dishes. These wonderful friends were all around me and my wife, holding both of us up. It was incredible what they did. “Then, I remembered what I hadn’t done when Sam’s wife had died. I shuddered, ‘Boy, I can’t possibly be that shallow!’ I just didn’t understand how friends can make a difference. I made a promise to myself that I would never let that happen again. So when I have a friend in need, I drop everything, and go. I figure if he doesn’t want me he can tell me goodbye.” |
| This reminded me of a talk I heard on tape, which Myrtle Smith, C.S.,
from Belfast, Northern Ireland gave.
She was on a plane from New York to Dallas, and she and the man seated next to her had been talking. He mentioned his little girl had died, and it led Mrs. Smith to tell him this story. A woman’s only child, a little girl 8-years-old, had died. The mother was so grief-stricken she had retreated from life, gone into her house, closed the door, pulled down the shades and didn’t see anyone. She sat in the shadows crying. One night she dreamed of a band of little angels, who were singing and carrying candles. Suddenly, she saw her little girl, but she wasn’t singing and her candle wasn’t lit. When asked, “Why?” The child replied, “My mother’s tears put out my candle.” The mother awoke asking, “What have I done to my little girl?” She got up, wiped her tears, pulled up the shades and called her friends. A few weeks later the mother had the same dream. There was the little group of angels, and leading them was her little girl, who was singing, and her candle was lit. |
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As a teenager who hasn’t been all tied up with worry about school tests,
the prom, plus a bundle of things that seem, at the time, all-consuming?
When this happened to me, my mother would suggest, “Why don’t you leave
it in HIS hands? Compared to parting the Red Sea, it doesn’t sound like
this would be too big a problem for HIM.”
My mother knew how to cut things down to size, put them in the right perspective. I called it “watermeloning” it. Have you ever split a huge melon, and it opened right in the center,exposing the very heart? Frequently, she reminded me I’d gone over what to do so much, she thought I’d already done it. It could be called the “paralysis of analysis.” ALL TALK + NO DO = STAGNATION. |
It’s amazing how much I glean from my celebrity interviews.
I’m not talking about what the next movie is, or their current main squeeze,
or the salary for their next project, it goes deeper than that. For instance,
I was talking with Rob Morrow, who I’d met when he starred on TV in
“Northern Exposure,” and later in “The Last Dance.” He said,