Love Ya / Mean It Robin

Joy is a wonderful thing. Mostly it is a choice. First to choose to be joyful and second then, maybe, to choose to share it. 

It may even be more than choosing, perhaps joy is something one creates. I love joyful creative people. Nobody embodies that more than the woman who coined a phrase I have joyfully cribbed - Love Ya / Mean It.

We are not talking blind love here, Love Ya / Mean It means something far more significant. LY/MI is loving past foibles and idiosyncrasies. Loving not in spite of them. It is more that the things that our loved ones do to make us crazy are the very things that make them the unique individuals we love. 

It is a spectacular thing to simply love people for who they are. I try to open my heart that way. For me it is a process that requires a conscious effort. For years I would watch Robin and marvel that she was able to do it with an inborn grace. 

I got to know Robin through Disney fan sites on the internet. She wrote loving, hysterical stories of trips to Disney, warts and all. I love those stories and I love Robin.

I made some pins once with LY/MI on them. The plan was to sell them and raise a few bucks to help her have another Disney vacation, so she would write stories and we could all share in the joy laugh. At the time Robin was delivering Pizzas in frozen Maine to make ends meet and maybe save a little for a trip. When I told her the plan she simply said that she wanted them money to go to diabetes care. Delaney had just been diagnosed and she felt that was more important. So Robin.

Robin left this world yesterday. I am confident that she left it a better place for her care, her humor, and her ability to find and share joy. I pray for comfort to all the hearts she touched that will be broken by her passing, her magically blended family, her friends, maybe even the odd grasshopper that terrified her. We are all better for how Robin touched our lives.

If you would like a look into the joy Robin found and shared and maybe get a real feel for LY/MI some of her stories are on BadShoe. (Some of the links out and photos no longer work but Robin's Magic is still just as strong as ever.) In the beginning of one of her 2004 collection of stories she wrote, “Because that is all life really is, a series of great adventures.”

Thanks again for sharing your adventures Robin, 

LY/MI

Thanks 50 thousand times!

YDMV reached the 50k visit mark yesterday. Thanks to everyone of you who has stopped by. I did a little quick math and that is more visits than test strips on the floor in the same amount of time - Impressive because with two kids pumping, we get a hell of a lot of strips on the floor.

Is it possible for a strip to get into the trash without first hitting the floor?

YDMV started because my daughter challenged me to share my views on type 1 and parenting. Thanks Kelley for throwing down that gauntlet. Thanks for the challenges you, Blair, Connor and Delaney share with mom and I every day. Each and every new experience you guys bring us has been a joy. OK some take a little while to have the joy part come out but it always does.

By the way Kelley is responsible for the visual make over that comes with the 50k mark. Hope y'all like it.

It seems a little ironic that YDMV crosses this milestone while I have been spending a lot of effort on another creative challenge. This one I brought to Kelly - a turn about is fair play. While I may have let posting to YDMV slip a little, our focus on the DOC has not. I think y’all will really like the results of that other project. Stay tuned.

In the mean time please know you readers have given me back a lot thanks. LY/MI.