My Empowered Vision

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Good Evening and Welcome to My Life.

Someone asked me why I joined the Empower Network after having ignored it for so long.  The reason is simple and speaks to the importance of relationship marketing.  A dear friend asked me to join.  After I joined, I found there was so much more to it than I had imagined that I could kick myself for waiting so long.

If you’ve already read my mini-bio at the bottom, then you know that there is someone who is no longer with us from this picture.  This picture was taken while my husband was in remission for amyloidosis, a rare blood disease that is similar to a cancer.  He put up a great fight but the damage that was done to his internal organs was too much for him in the end.

October 18, 2011 he was back in the hospital for a minor infection that had started from a blister on his toe.  We expected him to be released the next day.  He told me before I left that night the he’d fallen in love with me all over again as we’d battled this awful disease together, running to doctors, to dialysis, and emergency rooms.

The next morning I got a call from the hospital.  He was gone.

This has been a very difficult year to be without Joe.  He wasn’t there to see Bill graduate.  I’m so proud of my son.  In spite of what we we’ve gone through over the last several years, he graduated on the four year plan as scheduled.

He’s ready to take the next step in his life.  I want to show him that whatever he wants to do is possible as long as you believe and have the passion to follow through.  I believe he will do wonderful things.

Joe wasn’t there to see our twin daughters attending their Junior Prom.  I think he might have had tears in his eyes if he had (not that he would admit that).  We had 32 teenagers in our backyard for pictures as they waited for the trolley bus that was to drive them around all night.

I want to be the example for Jen and Nicky.  I want them to know that they have wonderful choices ahead of them.  The whole world is theirs to conquer.  I don’t want their future to be limited because Joe is gone or because my job was declared to be redundant.

Finally, I do have an altruistic vision and maybe one that is a bit on the selfish side, but I’m allowed one.

I am a strong proponent of education.  I believe in investing in my own education and in encouraging education in the schools, especially in the areas of success and life skills.  If these skills were taught right alongside math and language arts, our children would start out their post graduate life with an edge.  The subject material that I see her at the Empower Network is something that I truly agree with.