Ian Shepherd

Life Lessons: a Roadmap to Surviving Life's Twists and Turns Ian Shepherd

If your family is anything like mine, you probably have some wonderful storytellers who can make you laugh and make you cry. Such were my grandfathers, father, uncles and cousins. They could tell a yarn that would have you rolling in fits on the floor. Invariably at the end of each story one of them would say, "You know what I learned from that?" Depending on the story being told, you might get any number of funny answers, like: someone holding up a hand with a missing finger and saying, "Never dare your sister to chop off your finger."Those statements were a kind of roadmap that they were giving us. They were showing us the lessons that we could learn from the antics, actions or sad occasions that they had experienced. It was a kind of paternal advice that could be taken or ignored. When the older members of our family passed away, I realized that we had lost a lot of those stories. No one had ever written them down. We could not remember all the details to recreate them. In essence that learned experience had died with them. Thus I began to put together stories from my life for my children to keep and give to their children. As I said, some can be fairly funny; like the one with the advice that you should "never parachute your cat into a pack of wild dogs" or the one where I tell them "don't set yourself on fire in the toilet stall." The telling of these two stories will have to wait until later. Some of our stories are sad and yet have a profound message that I want my children to remember. Most, however, are happy and reflect the humorous side of family life. We have also added special thoughts and prayers that were made on behalf of our family and children at the end of this book. These are added as guideposts to what our hopes and dreams are for their success, life, happiness, and most importantly their relationship with God.