Thursday, August 29, 2019

Jeff's Last Post


Before he died, Jeff Simpson with the help of his wife, wrote one last blogpost.  But instead of posting it anywhere, they gave it to their pastor to read at his celebration of life last week.  When the pastor read it aloud to us, I knew I had to ask for it, not only because of what Jeff said, but also because it was pure Jeff.  With the help and full permission of his wife, I present to you Jeff's last post, edited only to fit the format:
In my nine plus years of battling cancer, I learned a few lessons that I feel the need to share. The first is, as the late Coach Jim Valvano famously said, “Don’t Give Up….Don’t Ever Give Up.” In my time fighting this dreaded disease, there were some very dark times and yet with so much to fight for, I never considered giving up.

The Second lesson is Build Your Army. No one accomplishes anything alone in this world. You have to build your army and be willing to accept help. MY army was incredible, it consisted of my amazing family, my incredible medical team at UW Hospital, the Cottage Grove and Monona Grove community, My Gilda’s club support group, my Messiah Lutheran family and of course Jesus. With that strong of an army, who can stand against me?

Third is Be Active in your community. It is important that we all do our best to make our world a better place and the best way to do that is right out your front door. Run for local office, attend local meetings, volunteer locally, shop locally when you can. Help your neighbor with tasks if you are able. The best way to change the world is acts of service and kindness with your neighbors, let the goodness trickle up.

Fourth and final – Be Nice. As the Bible states “and the Greatest is Love" We have become so polarized as a nation and state and there is too much anger and hatred in the world. I know in my time, I was in the middle of many of these battles, but I truly tried to engage civilly and with all people. We need to stop treating each other as enemies and instead look upon them as the human being that they are and find common ground.

Also a couple more requests – Lets cure Cancer, we have brilliant minds in this world, this disease is horrible and we need to stop it.. Let’s get money out of politics also, so the good of the people will be the main policy driver not the profits of the corporation. Support your Public Schools. They are staffed with people who really care about all kids, so support them the way they support the community. Finally, live your life with passion and every day will have blue skies!

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the work you did here. You have been an inspiration to all of us dissidents and a model for speaking out!

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