Month: November 2021

Thought For The Day

After my friend Lee’s recent visit, I wanted to share a few quotes surrounding what I feel a true friend like him means, as each of the following could very easily describe him…

“A friend is someone who can see the truth and pain in you even when you are fooling everyone else.” (Unknown)

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” (Ed Cunningham)

“Being a good friend doesn’t mean you always have all the right words to say. Sometimes it means you just know when to be a good listener.” (Katrina Mayer)

“How beautiful it is to find someone who asks for nothing but your company.” (Brigitte Nicole)

“Friendship means understanding, not agreement. It means forgiveness, not forgetting. It means the memories last, even if contact is lost.” (Unknown)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Grateful Heart Monday

Welcome to another entry of Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude remains my sole focus of my writing, which for today is for my friend Lee’s recent visit to see me for a few days over 2021’s Halloween weekend.

My friend Lee and I go way back to the years when I once lived in the Washington, D.C. area. We used to bowl in a league there together and were also part of a very fun board games group that met once a month. Over the past 10 years, I’ve only gotten to see Lee for a friend’s funeral in 2018 and a few hours for dinner and coffee on a recent trip to DC. I truly miss him and my other close friends from the DC area and wish it was easier to see them more regularly. Nevertheless, when Lee said he was open to visiting me here in Toledo, I was ecstatic, not only because I haven’t been able to spend much time with him over the years, but also because most of my long-distance friends aren’t very keen on visiting this area. I often think if I lived in a place like Tampa or some other city with lots to do, that I’d probably have more of my friend’s visit. So, my first piece of gratitude is for Lee’s visit coming to fruition.

The second piece really deals with all the things we experienced together during Lee’s visit that I wanted to recap in today’s Grateful Heart Monday, as this blog is as much of a diary of my life as it is a daily column for the world to read too.

I’m truly thankful for the time Lee and I spent in Detroit’s Greektown with dinner at the Golden Fleece and getting pastries from Astoria Bakery, for the dinner we had at the Public House in Monroe and seeing the new film Last Night In Soho, which was phenomenal, for a day trip we took to Crane Creek State Park and Marblehead Light House, where the waves were close to 10 feet on Lake Erie, for lunch in Marblehead at The Galley, where our waitress there Beth was so kind, even though she had lost her husband a few weeks prior, for the hug she and I shared where I felt God’s presence, for the many coffees we had at a number of Starbucks, for the day trip we took to Frankenmuth, which is an authentic German village where we shopped at Bronner’s (the world’s largest Christmas store), had an early dinner at Zehnder’s, shopped in some local stores including my two favorites (the country store with penny candy and the mammoth cheese shop), for a lunch we had at Tony Packo’s, for Lee getting to meet a few of my friends here including Tony and Jym, for a few good scares we shared on Halloween night watching the new Paranormal Activity movie on Paramount Plus,, and for receiving Lee’s kindness and gentleness through it all, a trait he’s always carried from the very first day I met him.

I’m truly grateful to you Lee, for being my friend for over 20 years now and for coming to visit me here in Toledo over Halloween weekend 2021, which is why I’ve dedicated today’s Grateful Heart Monday to you.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Thought For The Day

Today’s quotes surround the sad reality that most addicts tend to blame others for their problems…

“Addiction, at its worst, is akin to having Stockholm syndrome. You’re like a hostage who has developed an irrational affection for your captor. They can abuse you, torture you, even threaten to kill you, and you’ll remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal.” (Georges Simeon)

“Blaming is what addicts do in order to make themselves feel better about their addiction. Finding someone or something to blame helps them feel like their addiction isn’t the real issue.” (Unknown)

“Too often, the people closest to the addict don’t really want to admit there is a problem. They minimize or justify the addict’s destructive behaviors, like the addict erroneously blaming everyone else for their own problem, all while ignoring the glaring evidence of the one who is really sick, that being the addict themselves.” (Andrew Arthur Dawson)

“It’s important to fully understand the disease concept of addiction. That way you can step away from the “shame and blame game”, the one where you find yourself resenting the addict for always taking ownership of their disease.” (Andrew Arthur Dawson)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson