AARP Member
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Background
Name: Deb
Birthday: June 28
Gender: Female
Status:
Divorced
Ethnicity:
Caucasian
Location:
Texas
United States
Texas
United States
Quote:
"Life's a BEACH. I love the smell of the Ocean in the morning."
"Life's a BEACH. I love the smell of the Ocean in the morning."
Can you be haunted by the present?Keep Looking Up
When I was very young and still living at home in Kansas City, MO with my parents there was a small wall plaque hanging on the wall that said" Keep Looking Up". At the time I had no idea what the inscription meant and I guess it was not such a curious thing that I chose to ask my parents to explain it. Instead, I chose to think up things in my child's mind of unlimited possibilities. One idea, referring to the story of Chicken Little, where I'm sure you all know is about a little chicken who thinks the sky is falling after being hit on the head by an acorn as he snoozed under a tree, and went around for days looking up in expectation of the sky falling on my head. Another scenario was again related to a nursery rhyme, Jack In The Beanstalk, convincing myself I had to watch for some type of stairway to the skies above in case the giants decided to come down or worse yet, fell to earth unexpectedly. I also thought, it may have been a reminder from my parents and other adults who always seemed to be telling me to "watch where you're going", therefore this plaque was telling me to look up to make sure I wasn't about to run into something or someone.
Later, after moving out on my own getting married and then divorced, I was forced to move back to my parents home, which they now only stayed in on occasion having moved out of state. While unpacking and putting some of my stuff away in the closet, I came across a box there, hidden away in the back. Within that box was an array of forgotten items, an ashtray (my parents smoked) made in ceramic class, an old high school year book, a notebook filled with pictures of my idol (Marilyn Monroe) and at the bottom of the box under everything else was the forgotten plaque. When I found the plaque, I dusted it off and hung it back on the wall in my reclaimed room.
I spent many days trying once again, to figure out what the inscription meant. At first the only thing that came to mind was a memory of a defensive driving class where the instructor told us, after inviting the class to relate their stories of how they had received their tickets, that nine out of ten stories had one thing in common, somewhere within the story the teller would say "when I looked up". The instructor in her epilogue said the best advice she could give us was to "keep Looking Up". In my case, since I seemed to be plagued with the unwanted skill of getting tickets and having minor accidents this thought was something that has always stuck with me even though I knew that was not the meaning behind the inscription on this particular plaque.
Months later having given up on the plaque quotation I began attending church services again, for the first time in years. I started out going to the evening services on Sundays due to my work schedule, then added the Wednesday service as my schedule allowed. I had been going through a tough time since my divorce and subsequent loss/sale of my house for much less than market value this, left me feeling a little distraught and somewhat lost. I had always gone to church as a child, my father was a deacon and part time Sunday school teacher. I had accepted God and believed Jesus Christ to be my savior. It was on an evening when I was particularly down that I saw the light, so to speak. I sat on the end of my bed, despair dripping from my face in the form of tears, as I prayed for help and guidance from my Lord, I raised my head to see the plaque hanging over me on the wall where I had placed it, at that moment the meaning of the words became crystal clear.
In that instant, I remembered that when I was a child, the plaque had previously graced our wall hanging under, the picture of Jesus Christ on the cross at his crucifixion. I then recalled all the teachings from my father and church classes and tutorials about Christ giving his life to save all mankind and forgive us for our sins with his blood. It all came flooding back and I realized that throughout life the most important thing I ever needed to do was, to Keep Looking Up.
Written by: Deb Dobs
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Added: Apr 9, 2009
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