Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

Meet Mr. Max Levin, my Great Grandfather, man of many inspirations.

Words Are Inspirations

MISTAKES

You are house hunting. You turn down the wrong street. The addresses do not match. What a lucky mistake. The house of your dreams sits on southwest corner with a For Sale sign glimmering in the light of the sun.

UNDERSTANDING

You understand that a lot of people will not put in the necessary amount of work, but you are one of the rare ones who will!

TEACHER

Your teachers come in many different forms, but you are in fact your best teacher and it is always up to you.

PERFECTION

Perfection is a process you can personalize and leave holes for your progress to shine through.

KEEPING UP

You need only to keep up to yourself and build on your prior successes. Each success traveling in your mind will gather depth and speed.

FABULOUSLY FLEXIBLE FAITH

These words stuck together because one or two without the other do not make up a truth. Together they shine, glow, and grow.

ADVENTURE

Create your own personalized adventure. Look inside and peek out just a moment or two to make minor adjustments.

Add you own Inspiration, please.

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My father, Martin Levin wrote the lyrics to “The Right Way.’ His friends Rich Smith and Chia Hui Lin wrote: Music, Vocal, and Piano. The song is about how he ordered his life and made no excuses. He answered, “I did it the RIGHT way and that is it. I hear my father all of the time. He speaks to me from the grave like no other.

The Right Way

Words: Martin Levin

I think it is time for me to tell the story of my life, the right way.

Still traveling the highways and byways searching for the new way. There were times I knew the new way was the wrong way, so…back to my way, the right way of hard work, long hours, standing tall, facing it all, as a man on my way, the right way.

Born at 158 Downey Street, San Francisco; came to Los Angeles in my youth, to live my life a new right way, The Scrap Iron Business. Rose my wife adds to my life, Sheila is born; Michael came along, then Ron. Ron is now gone. All college bound, left Huntington Park, my town. I was doing things my way, the right way. Bought a lot, rented it to the United States Post Office and to this day, they pay. Bought 30 acres in Montebello, just a hole full of water, but doing it the old way, filling the hole, developing the land, made huge profits, the people had to pay.

A new way, the right way, was sharing the profits with the family.

Business, land, risks, hard work, annuities, partners, sharing profits, salesmanship, developing new right ways for all of my days. Discovering and rediscovering the way me, for Rose and the family.

Busy planning every step of my life, doing it carefully the right way. Standing tall, facing it all as a man, as strong a model as I can. Finder’s fees, successful plans, paperwork, bids, guts, friendships, making money for me, for Rose and the family.

There is industry, plans, ability, agree or disagree, and a great need for privacy. Rose my wife, the partner in my life, lives at home with caregivers and me twenty-four hours a day, my only right way.

This story does not end but has a happy note. Health restored, plans renewed with my wife, partner for life, my children, my grand children, my great grandchildren. I love the with all of my heart and maybe a new way is better, but for me the right way is for me, for Rose and the family.

I have been enlightened once again by my father, Martin Levin. Whenever you are challenged to do something, do it thoughtfully and know it is the right way! I share this song with you today in his honor.

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I want to thank you for the lessons in never giving up on someone or really anything. I hope you still feel this way, because I have never given up. Since I have learned to take a stand and be willing to stand alone, your prophecies have come parading along side, in and among my brain cells.

Never giving up on someone is true love and it is not necessary for it to be returned. I think we perceive a love that has to be returned for it to be true. Not at all, it is your love you are giving and you never giving up. That is your love and your truth.

You do not necessarily have to be giving up the love of someone when you are giving the healing directions you are giving. Since you cannot change someone’s thoughts ideas and actions, you keep your hope alive not by severing ties, but watching, praying, and loving from the sidelines.
Send thoughts of love, hope, faith, trust, and worthiness.

Google, Channeling. Spirit Guides, voices within, Plug in.

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You have been given tools to accept yourself or not. You can choose to accept parts and abhor other parts. The abhorring is the negative side of thinking, which can and will take you down a curvy road. Negative thoughts appear in all of us and the ones who will fair the best are the ones who learn which thoughts to propagate, which and who to let die on the vine.

How do you accept, and how do you know who and what to let die on the vine?

Breathe deeply, sitting quietly, thinking upon layers of independent thinking, crying to beat the band and all of a sudden it comes in rolling waves. NEVER GIVE UP. Never give up on yourself and or anyone else.

How do you now when you are done? Continue checking, go as deeply down inside of yourself to the center of your core, and feel the difference. When you hear the Ping-Pong dinging in your ears, perhaps that is the signal. Ask someone’s opinion and discard it. It is your opinion you are seeking and your opinion is to never give up and so therefore, you are never done. Close at times, but never, and remember never is a long, long time.

Keep up the courage, the enthusiasm, and the faith!

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Do you? I assume we all do because I know pretty much exactly how it will be, perhaps is. I see my death scenes often when I close my eyes. I hate to write this for fear you will feel sorry for me and try to talk me out of it. Every time I have told anyone, they try and say no way, you can’t know that for certain. Oh yes I can and I do. The sight of me dying has not left or changed since I turned 60. It has not let up or given me choices. It is exactly the same depiction each and every time only a few more machines, tubes and more discomfort, yet I keep saying I will not let go and I don’t.

The sun rises and sets in my knowing how I will die, so it is not like I would hope, quick and easy. It is not a pleasant sight and I do try and change it, try and picture someone else in exchange for me, push the sight from my conscious mind, but alas, I cannot. It is me and I am there dying exactly the same each and every time I go there. Another thing that annoys me is the fact that I have to be dying in my mind so many times. You would think once would be enough, but somehow when I least expect it, I am in my mind again dying, and again there is no change in the room, the bed, the spread, the mumbles all around, the curtains with yellow embroidery swaying and me there lying in repose when the deed is not yet done.

And you? Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? I know time and again you have asked me not to be morbid, but this is not morbid or sad to me, actually, it is rather comforting. I see no pain!!!

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LOVE

The greatest gift given is Love

If it is given freely

And accepted in gratitude.

Can you think of a more cherished gift?

If you can, then give it.

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I go to my parent’s gravesite to thank them

I thank them for my life.

I thank my mother for driving the distance to the orthodontist.

I like to smile.

I also thank her for insisting I go to UCLA and helping me to join my wonderful sorority Sigma Delta Tau, where I have maintained friends for life. And, Mom, so many times I thought you were wrong and it turns out you were right.

I thank my father for his courage and for all of his words that float around in my head. I tell him that once in awhile they fall out of my mouth and into the ears of others. You continue to be a towering positive strength and our teacher by modeling.

Tell someone something wonderful you see in within and know they will want to hear.

They will know joy and you will feel their love and perceive their gratitude

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If you could speak to anyone on the planet living or dead who would it be? This is a question I would like you to stop reading and ponder for a little while. Now you have firmly picked a person, see the person’s face, now take some time to gather what you would like to ask.

Thank you for your time. I would recall my Grandma Hannah, my mother’s mother. I would apologize.

I would apologize for not being the granddaughter she deserved. I would apologize for not knowing what I had to offer and for not knowing what she would have enjoyed. Oh, hindsight is such a glorious and perfectly edited teacher.

I would have sat longer at the dinner table with you when you made your delicious lamb chop to share with me. Where did I have to go in such a hurry? After all, I had the most important person in the world at that moment right across the table. My innocence, I apologize. I would have told you things, many things you would have thought about long after I was gone. My abrupt leaving left you only with the dishes and the clean up. Hardly the memory I would want you to have.

I would have come to visit you so many times more than I did. I would have realized that you didn’t even know me or I you. How could you have known much? I gave you so little time and conversation. I know some things about you because your six children told many stories.

Now, again, I have brought you here, not only to apologize, but because I want to tell you of the family you have created. I would tell you such nice things about them and their contributions to their world. How handsome your boys, how beautiful their wives: how lovely are your girls and how handsome their husbands. How beautiful and accomplished are every one of your grandchildren and your great grandchildren are as equal to any task as were their ancestors. I know the best is yet to come and I hope there are more times to talk.