What If You Never Got to Tell Them? Appreciating the People Who Make Your Life Worth Living

So often on the podcast, especially these solo episodes, I'm devoted to talking about personal growth and development, self-improvement, all these tips and tactics to help you become the best version of you.

And yeah, that's pretty darn important for each and every one of us to be sure that we are indeed showing up to life the best version of us.

But what I want to talk about today doesn't really have anything to do with us, it has to do with the people around us.

You'll hear people say that you are the sum of the five people you spend life with, that your circle that you're around, that they influence who you are.

Today, I'm not really talking about that.

I'm not talking about the influence that the people around you have on you.

Instead, I'm talking about the life-changing impact that your people have on you.

And when I talk about your people, when I talk about today's topic, I'm talking about the people who do life with you.

Maybe it's one, maybe it's two, maybe it's 10.

For me, it just so happens to be five.

Five core people who got me.

They're my 2 a.m.

friends.

They're the friends that when everything goes wrong, everything goes south, they're the ones I'm gonna call.

But they're also the ones who are just there on an ordinary Wednesday at 7 a.m.

Saturday at 3 p.m.

When life is just life and you're just going through the emotion, everything is good.

They're the people you just do life with, but they're also the people that are there for you on the best days and the worst days.

You celebrate the holidays with them, you celebrate special occasions by going out to dinner with them, but they're also the sister who's there with you on the bathroom floor at 11 o'clock at night when you're sick, and she's there just holding your hand, being sure that you're okay.

It's these people that I'm talking about.

And the reason I bring this up is that none of us get through life alone.

We all have somebody, or hopefully, a group, to help us get through life because life is not easy.

Today's episode is coming out one week prior to the 23-year anniversary of when I went into brain surgery as just a 17-year-old teenager.

My family's life was turned upside down with the news that I had a brain tumor and had only six months to live if this tumor was not removed.

Me going blind, having the health challenges that I do, none of that was expected.

All we knew in this moment was there was this life-threatening brain tumor, something that had been plaguing my life for my entire childhood, and we didn't even know it.

My family was there for me then.

Now, truth be told, I am lucky enough, fortunate enough, grateful enough to have an incredible family, a huge family.

When you add everybody up between my mom's side, my dad's side, there's a whole lot of people.

And when it matters, like times like that, everybody was there.

Everybody shows up.

And truth be told, even now, 23 years later, if I need something, you better bet all I have to do is pick up the phone, send a text, make a call.

But today, though, I'm talking about the people that you don't have to call because they're the people that you just do life with.

I don't know who that person is for you, who those people are for you.

But today I want us to acknowledge them.

The people who are more than making life meaningful, they make life possible for me, with the health challenges that I face, even to this day, honestly, I'm not exaggerating when I say if it weren't for these people, I would not be here.

There's no way that I would have made it through the physical challenges, all the medical emergencies I've endured.

If it weren't for these five people, they are everything to me.

I want to share with you a little bit about them, a little bit about my story.

But in doing so, I'm doing it so that you can hopefully think of the people in your own life.

For me, it's my mom, my dad, my sister, and my nana, and my papa.

Now, as I said, I'm lucky enough.

I have a very big, amazing family.

I've been fortunate enough to, at my age, 40 years old, have my parents, have grandparents.

I go to lunch every month with my dad's mom, who I call Janny.

I have many aunts and uncles and cousins.

They're all there.

But these five people in particular, they're just the people who I do everyday life with.

The ordinary moments, the extraordinary moments, and all those in between.

So, where I want to go from here is to first and foremost, I want to call them out by name.

My mom, Teresa, my dad, Steve, my sister, Tiffany, my Nana, Gail, and my papa, Denny.

Each one of these people play a role in my everyday life.

I'm lucky enough, fortunate enough, that I get to live with two of my best friends, with my mom and my sister.

No, has life gone like any of the three of us ever thought it would?

Not a chance.

Who would have ever thought that at this point in our lives the three of us would be living together?

And yet, through the craziness of life, it's just what it is.

Is it what we would have chosen or planned?

Probably not.

But it's the way that God's made it all work out.

And I've learned one thing in life is that God's plans are always better than ours.

And we just have to find the good in them.

We could dwell on it, or we can sit back and we can realize the beauty in it.

For me, yeah.

To be honest, I wish I've had the opportunity by now in life to have fallen in love, to have gotten married, to have a wife, to have a family of my own.

But so far, for whatever reason, it's not been in my plan.

And that's okay.

Because right now, I get to live with my two best friends, my mom and my sister.

I get to be there every morning when my mom leaves for work, to be sure that she's got her lunch with her, to make her a cup of coffee if she wants it, to lock the door when she leaves and say a prayer that God will keep her safe.

My dad, well, me and my dad, we talk all the time.

My mom often jokes that the two of us are like two teenage girls that we talk so much on the phone.

But hey, we're just guys.

We got stuff to say.

Whether we're teenage girls or adult men, we got stuff to talk about.

And to be honest, how awesome is that that I get to talk to my dad every morning, multiple times throughout the day.

The two of us are on the phone chit-chatting about what's going on in the day.

And for me, that's just pretty darn awesome.

For my sister, Tiffany, we've grown up together.

She's five years older than me, and we've grown up as basically just two best friends.

We've gone through life together.

We fight like cats and dogs when we need to, because we're brother and sister, but we love each other, and that's what matters.

My nana and papa, I talk to them every single day.

If I haven't talked to them at some point during the day, then by eight o'clock at night, I'm giving them a call.

Everybody knows in the family that somewhere between 7:30 and 8, if you call and Nana's phone is busy, it's because she's probably on the phone with Kevin.

Because I check in every single night and have for as long as I can remember.

It's just one of those things that I do.

I make the call.

Papa is normally the one to answer.

I get to talk to him for a few minutes before he passes on the phone to Nana.

And I get to catch up with my grandmother.

Now, funny enough, they only live literally about three minutes away from me.

But still, I make the point to make the phone call, to get to actually talk with my grandparents.

My Nana, I've had her on the podcast before.

And I've got to introduce you to her.

I've talked about her before many times, especially around this time of year, the anniversary of when I went blind, because that was when I transitioned from having a typical grandmother and grandson relationship to becoming best friends with my grandmother.

That, my friend, is a gift, an absolute blessing.

Each one of these people have made my life possible, have given me a reason to keep going, despite some of the hardest times I've ever gone through.

23 years it's been, and still to this day, there's moments when it hurts, when it's hard.

Not necessarily the thing of being blind, but being robbed of a life that I thought I was going to have.

All of us in this group of six thought our lives would look way different by now.

But they've gone like they have.

And the one thing that matters is that we have each other.

Those are my five people, my core, my group.

And the truth is, is they're five individuals with their own lives, their own purpose, their own dreams, and their own things that have gone like they hoped, and things that haven't.

And yet somehow, through everything that life has dealt them, they've put aside their lives for me.

They've each made sacrifices for me.

And I think it's so often for any of us, for the people who are there with us day in and day out, the ones who honestly mean the most, it's so easy to not necessarily forget about them, but to just not give them the recognition that they honestly deserve.

Because we just get used to them being in life with us.

We tend to make a bigger deal out of the people who maybe show up every once in a while and do something really cool.

It stands out, it's something different.

And we tend to get excited about it, more so than what the people do for us on just a normal everyday basis.

But that's why today is here, why this episode is here is to remind us that we need to be sure that the people who are there for us on just a random Tuesday, week after week, that we let them know how much they mean to us, how much we appreciate them, how much we love them.

We need to be sure that they understand that we couldn't do life without them.

If that is true, let them know it.

The people behind the scenes of our lives, they don't just make our lives possible.

So often, they're the ones who make our lives worth living in the first place.

For me, it's Teresa, Steve, Tiffany, Gail, and Denny.

My five core people who've been there with me every step of my entire life.

And I cannot be more grateful for God for giving me these five people to do life with.

So for you, I want you to think who are the people who are there for you each and every day, every morning, every evening.

The people honestly, they're probably the people you live with, your family, whether they're roommates, just friends, whether they're your wife, your husband, your children, somebody, anybody, maybe it's your neighbor you see every day, your colleagues who you work with, you hang out with after work.

Who are those people who are just there?

Not sometimes, not on special occasions, but who are the people who make up your life?

Who they are?

I want you to remember them today.

I want you to think of them today.

I want you to reach out to them today, and I want you to just simply acknowledge how much they mean to you.

I want you to think about the person who's there on a Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.

when you're feeling a little down, and you just need to send a text just to let the person know, hey, I'm not doing real great today.

And I just needed to tell somebody who is that person in your life?

Let them know how much they mean to you.

Or what about the person at 3 a.m.

on a Saturday when the night's gone crazy?

You find yourself in a very bad situation, you can get creative with what that situation looks like.

Who is it that you're calling?

Who is that person?

Well, maybe you need to go ahead and prepare in case that night happens again by being sure that you reach out to that person today and let them know that you were thinking of them, that you were listening to this podcast with this guy going on about your your people, about your crew.

And it just made you think of them.

Today is about recognizing the people, the unsung heroes of our lives.

It's the people behind the scenes who make it all possible.

That is what today is all about.

Because, as I've said, I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my five core people.

And to be honest, right now, I don't know what tomorrow would look like for me if I didn't have these five people in my life.

I don't want to think about life without them.

Because they have literally made my life worth living.

And as I celebrate the 23-year anniversary of when my life was saved, I want to be sure that I remember to recognize my mom and my dad, my sister, my grandparents.

I want to be sure that these five people know that this anniversary goes to them because they're the ones that have made it all possible for me.

And the truth is that many times people they see me, they hear my story, they hear my podcasts, maybe they see me speak, and I'm painted as the hero of the story.

I'm the big one in the shining light under the spotlight.

And hey, I mean, that's cool, I guess.

But I guess what I want to say is that the real heroes are the people behind the scenes.

It's just like in a movie, any production.

The actor, they're only one little piece.

It's all the people behind the scenes that makes it possible.

Well, that's the same in all of our lives.

It's the people behind the scenes that make our lives possible.

So let us be sure that we let them know how much they mean to us, how much we respect them, how much we love them.

I don't know what tomorrow will hold.

In one scenario of my life story, I was supposed to have died at 17 years old.

I'm now 40 years old.

And all I want to be sure that I let it be known is that mom, dad, if you guys are listening, Tiffany, if you're listening, Nana and Papa, I doubt you're listening, but in case you are, I just want you to know how much I love you, how much I thank you, that all of this, every single day of my life, is owed to each of you, because I would not be here today if it weren't for each one of you.

So, as we go through the next week into October 28th, celebrating the 23-year anniversary, I raise a toast to the five of you, thanking you for everything you've done for me from the very beginning and until the very end.

And to you, my listener, I hope today does one simple thing, and that encourages you, inspires you to reach out to the people that you love, to the people who love you, and let them know just how much they mean to you.

Until next week, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, and today was episode 468 of Grace and Inspiration.

Get out there and enjoy this beautiful day, and be sure that you let the people who are there for you each and every day know just how much you love them.

I had a picture of the life I'd lived, a thousand dreams and a world so big.

Seventeen changed everything, and time rewrote plans I'd made.

Some roads disappeared from view, some dreams I never got to choose.

Looking back at where I've been, I see who I made through.

It wasn't always something.

Sometimes it was just an open day.

You were never based in big twins.

Just the break for the big time for the quiet night in the open everything.

Nobody else could see you with the hand.

For having on a Thursday morning, when I'm hurting half.

To tell you what you mean in my life.

You didn't just tell me make it too.

You made this life worth living too.

You were the for the days in between.

Through the broken plans and the changing dreams.

Every moment's more than you could ever see.

You were the hands that held me stay.

Love that never left me empty.

If my life has taught me anything, it's love lives in the days in between.

And when they ask what carried me, I'll tell them who was there for me.

Not just the has, not just the loves, but all the days in between