“I’ve lived my life according to experiences, so I think I’m about 18 hundred years old,” said Charlie “Tremendous” Jones in July. “I’ve had 81 fantastic years,” he said, “And I’m tired.” With family members at his side, Charlie succumbed to his inoperable lung tumor and “triumphantly entered the gates of Heaven” at 4pm, October 16, 2008…one week shy of his 81st birthday.
In case you don’t know who “Tremendous” Charlie is…he’s the guy who said the secret of success is learning to be thankful…and he passionately promoted the reading, sharing and discussion of books. He so strongly believed a book could turn and shape a person’s life that he literally gave away tens of thousands of books! –His dream was to impact many lives.
Well Charlie impacted my life…not because of a book…but because of his words. A little over a year after Cindy died I went through a phase where I wanted to quit on life. It was as though the horror, the anguish, the fear, the hurt, the sadness, and all the pain that had accumulated over many years was finally crashing down around me as I read through the inquest’s exhibit evidence. I wanted to be in a shell to protect myself, wanted to immobilize myself, but at the same time recognized that I didn’t want to do that anymore. And I desperately needed to understand what was happening to me. I needed to talk about my pain and fear and other thoughts with a trustworthy soul because I felt I was falling apart…I was suicidal—wanting to die yet not really wanting to die…wanting to end the pain…wanting to escape…wanting to get relief. Through talking and sharing I was relieved to discover just how “normal” I actually was within the grief process. (And it’s been my experience through my Hospice work since then that ‘wanting to quit’ is a common thought within people on the road to healing in mourning.)
Charlie said, “There is a tremendous difference between wanting to quit and actually quitting. Sometimes you want to quit, but just because you want to quit doesn’t mean that you have to quit. A lot of people are afraid to want to quit because they are also afraid that they WILL quit. The secret is to accept that you want to quit, but realize and make up your mind that you will NEVER quit. Once you make up your mind to never quit until you’ve finished a task, then you can enjoy wanting to quit because you know in your heart that you never actually will quit.”
Well, Charlie, I didn’t quit. In fact I poured all my heart and soul into writing my book Who Killed My Sister, My Friend so that others might have the opportunity to turn and shape their lives by knowing they are not alone in pain.
People do care!
And peace is possible.
Thank you for being an inspiration for so many!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James