Be positive Derry
I'm in the mesh of positive thinking at the minute. If you think positive things, positive things will happen. If you think negative things, negative things happen. You create your world from your thoughts. I think it is important to bring about some positive thinking in numbers and create some positive energy. I would like to start locally which is why I'm calling this project Be Positive Derry. But, I invite anyone from anywhere to participate.
I would like to use this blog as a platform for spreading powerful and positive messages about overcoming obstacles and problems in your life. If you have a story you would like to share about how you have overcome a problem in your life, exactly how you did it and how you are now that you've come through the other side in a better place, let me know. You can email me at LesRH80@hotmail.com to share your story.
The first story is about my dad. Read on.
Be Positive Derry-Davey Hager's story
The first entry into my #bepostivederry project is from my dad, Davey Hager. I have to tell it for him. My dad passed away on December 16, 2014, however I think he is fitting to be the first one in my project, even though he has passed. Dad, shortly before he passed, faced emotionally challenging obstacles as well as the physical obstacles that ended his life. I have to tell his story for him as he’s not here, but I feel at this point, I am capable of doing so as I feel after his passing, I’ve understood him and perhaps even have become closer to him. I know that sounds strange, however, I feel a bond and closeness to him that didn’t end when he died, it grew and I feel his presence with me all the time and that’s why I feel his story of being positive is appropriate.
Dad didn’t always have the easiest time, he often felt he wasn’t good enough or deserving of love, not to say he was sad, he was quite the opposite. He was jolly, he was a jokester. He loved playing pranks and teasing people. But, he always had an insecurity about him that made him feel as if no one cared which was far from the truth. He had a smile that could very much light up a room. He loved people very much. He loved his family very much. He found expressing his emotions at times very difficult but not because he didn’t have them, because he never wanted to rock the boat or be a burden or bother anyone. I believe he feared rejection, which I think is a natural human fear.
He was a gentle person, a gentle soul. He was calm, he was accepting. My brother and I could have told him anything or told him about any choice we were making and he said okay and supported it, keeping his thoughts to himself even if he perhaps thought it was a bad idea. He very much believed you should live your own life. He was definitely more of a listener than a talker.
To give you an idea of the person he was, I’ll give you an example. When he passed away last December, I wanted to show my love and admiration for him one last time and I felt maybe I didn’t do it enough when he was alive but I didn’t know how. After thinking about it, I decided to speak at his funeral and I wanted to serve as pallbearer at his funeral, too. I didn’t know what else to do to memorialize him in the way I felt he deserved. I shared a story at his funeral that epitomizes the person he was. And, I’ll share it with you now.
When I was in college at Marshall University in the early 2000s, I had just broken up with a boyfriend, and I was distraught. My dad happened to call me on the phone at around the same time, or just right after it happened. So, I was upset. I cried on the phone to him and made the comment of, “I hate men,” or something along those lines. At that time, my dad lived in Ripley, WV, which was about an hour and a half drive away from where I was in Huntington, WV. We talked on the phone a bit and then we hung up. We had made no plans of seeing each other. About two hours later, my dad shows up at my apartment. He had made the drive all the way there because I was upset and he wanted to comfort me. That memory will always personify the way he was and is the perfect shining example of him.
Not that I’m looking through rose-coloured glasses when I speak of him because he was, as is every person, flawed, too. He got angry if you annoyed him or someone he loved. It didn’t happen very often because when it did...wow! He didn’t let you walk all over him. And, oh my, was he stubborn! He was quite possibly the most stubborn person I have ever come across. But, he also apologized when he felt it was appropriate maybe sometimes even if the person he was apologizing to didn’t deserve it, but he understood, especially towards the end of his life, that holding on to grudges and apologizing was the best thing to do because keeping anger in doesn’t serve you. Sometimes, you have to apologize to someone not because they deserve it, but because you do. This is what leads me in to him overcoming a bad time and coming through the other side (in this sense I do mean the other side, but I hope for future entries it means the other side of sadness as I would like people to share their personal experiences of overcoming a bad time, how you did it and how you are now).
Even though my dad had his fair share of sad times and hurt, he maintained himself, the person he was, that happy, live-and-let-live soul that he was/is. He never sought to hurt anyone if he was hurt in order to get revenge. He kept on. In the end, it was a bad mix of health problems brought on by complications from Diabetes that ended his physical life. And the past three month of his life were very traumatic for him and his mother, my grandmother (may she rest in peace). He faced great challenges and horrible treatment and emotional trauma brought on by people who should have been there for him at that time in his life. People who should have put their own interests aside and just loved and supported him, especially when he’d always done the same for them. Not only because they were family but because they were fellow human beings who should have supported each other and lifted each other up. I won’t say too much more about it because those people are still alive although they are no longer a part of my life as the negative energy they brought about doesn’t serve me and only, unfortunately, brings my energy down. And unfortunately as their energy at this present time is negative, I choose to block it. We must always remember that as humans, as souls, our natural state is joy and we must always work to maintain that state. I won’t get into much of that as it starts to cross a bit with my story and this one is about my dad. Safe to say, I’ve forgiven them for their actions, because holding on to the anger doesn’t serve me. That’s a difficult thing to do, but keeping in mind that sometimes maintaining your natural state of joy does take work and being positive.
The whole point of #bepostivederry is to share experiences on what exactly it is that brought you around from a low point in your life to a point of happiness, so unfortunately for my dad’s story, I don’t have exactly what it was that brought him through bad times to good times as I don’t have access to his thoughts (for example, with me, it’s dancing and Zumba that help me get through). But, I do know and sense that not only was my dad able to pull through difficult times in his life, he was able to be positive after the past three months of his life and his passing. He is a very positive spirit around me and I feel him around me all the time. He has helped me maintain my positivity and he has helped guide me at times when I need him. And, when I feel his presence, I feel one of calm and joy and I feel he is at peace even after those last three months. And, I feel the happy, jokester just as he always was. And, even if I ask him today his opinion of what I should do, his voice in my head is the same, “Do what you want, what makes you happy.” His soul, from what I sense, isn’t tortured and he has found and maintained joy even after the hardships. He, in turn, gives me peace and joy and if I’m half the person he was, I’m doing well. Or, if I’m half the person my mother is, I’m doing well, too, because I have/had two great parents. That's Davey pictured below with my grandmother.
