My Wish and Prayer for You

Yesterday morning I had a conversation with a friend of mine at the Firefly Coffee Shop.

It fit into some of the reflection that I had been going through for the past couple of days.

On Thanksgiving, we thought we had 14 sitting around the table, it was actually 15 we soon found out. (My youngest, Tiffany and her husband Jon are expecting a baby in May, they announced.)

This was the first time in about a year that all three of my kids, and both of my wife's kids and everyone's spouse or soon to be spouse with a couple of off-spring and a family friend had been together.

There was such a contrast at the table. I saw some who are struggling to put food on the table, some who will earn more in their 20's than I do in my 50's. But money isn't the real issue.

Everyone, except the 4 month old had experienced some form of relationship struggles and lived through it. The next day, I did a road trip to a place near Dayton, Ohio to see the farm where my son works and to meet his boss, whom I missed meeting last month at Josh's wedding.

I wanted to see what Josh does these days. I've been to my oldest daughter, Rachael's workplace, both current and some of her previous places; the same with my youngest Tiffany.

Each of my kids have experienced something I never did, and that is the divorce of their parents.

But they also got to see the successful 2nd marriages of their Mom & Dad, and how their Mom & Dad have worked together as parents, even after divorce. I'll be honest, it wasn't easy and we tried to keep the kids from being in the middle of their parents conflicts.

I've seen tremendous personal growth with each of my kids.

Each of them has gone through their own individual personal "hell" in their young lives, and made it through stronger, wiser, more mature, and better adjusted to what comes next in their life.

So my wish and prayer for each of them, and for everyone, is not an easy life.

Here's a portion of my story:

It's not easy. But it's not supposed to be.

I got fired from my 2nd full time radio job. Then they hired me back about a month later.

3 years later, I was married and we were expecting our first child when my job was eliminated.

I got another radio job and a few weeks later, the radio station that just hired me to do mornings, hired someone else as their program director who also wanted to do mornings. They said since I had a pregnant wife, I could stay, but I'd have to do the overnight airshift.

I stayed, and outlasted the program director, eventually got his job and then the station was sold and this time because I was in management, all the managers lost their jobs.

This time we had two kids and expecting our third. We ended up moving to Detroit where I worked for eight years. During those eight years, I stepped forward from my comfortable job, took a chance, became the morning air personality and less than a year later was fired to make room for someone else who wanted to come back to the station.

I fought for my previous position back, which I got but at a lower rate of pay. I stepped forward again and moved into advertising sales and was doing well, but my boss was jealous of some of the accounts that I had, and I ended up working for him in a lessor position. Finally I left on my own terms.

Fast forward to the past eight years, where I have risen from one of a dozen sales people, to managing a sales staff for two stations, to surviving an extreme reduction in our workforce (25 down to 6).

I ended up as an interim General Manager for our group of radio stations for a few months, and now I am of the senior radio advertising sales persons with responsibilities over one of our 4 stations.

Except for some of our air staff on WXKE, ROCK 104, I have been there the longest. And my position is just as secure as any other sales person. Sell and earn a living. Don't sell, and you lose not just income but your job. Pretty basic.

See, my life has not been easy, nor has it been hard. It is life, my life, and blessings abound.

Like I said, my wish and prayer for you is not an easy life.

It is for a life filled with learning, of growing, stretching, of cherishing the important, enjoying the moment, and to make wise decisions as you learn from the lessons life gives you.