A deep talk

 

Last night I had the most wonderful talk with my uncle. It had been 2 years and one spinal cord injury since the last time I saw him. A lot had changed. His face lit up as he entered the room, he gave me a big hug and immediately sat down and started in on a conversation with me. After praising me for my attitude and strength he asked me the question every adult asked me during this time in my life. “What are you thinking about studying?”

When I responed “I’ve been told I shouldn’t major in philosophy” he immediately responded, “been told?, what do you mean by that” he explained that this was the time in my life that I decided. And that everything I thought I knew about the profession I wanted to be a part of, would change when I started to dig a little deeper anyway. 

We talked about everything meaningful under the sun and I was beaming with joy taking in everything he had to say. It is these deep conversations that I used to start with the people around me, but somehow I lost interest. I thought that it always amounted to nothing to talk about theory and how things worked, but I was wrong. 

I forgot about the definition I had initially given to “deep talk” a long time ago. "Deep talk" is often talk that amounts to a change in one’s behavior, attitude, or personality. Change for the better. Over the course of our conversation, a new motivation was bestowed upon me. One that told me to do the things I aspired to do. 

We talked about my grandparents and the neverending positive aroma they put out into the world and how people remembered them. The importance of enriching one's self in order to enrich the lives of others. My uncle said that just thinking about talking to my grandfather gave him "warm fuzzies". an extraordinary way to be remembered and live on through the lives of others. 

Many possibilities revealed themselves in that talk. Ways to think, ways to act and questions to ask. A reminder that immediately after the accident I was on the right path. I had broken through a wall when I decided to be positive about my accident and breaking through that wall was only the beginning.