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Birthday
            Tributes

John really valued time spent with friends and family so this month, in honor of his birthday, we challenge you to spend quality time with your own friends and family.  Think of ways you can pay it forward to them and then do!  Feel free to share your quality time experiences with us for inclusion on this special birthday tribute page by emailing us at admin@payitforwardinmemoryofjohndye.net.  We also have a few ideas you can consider and some quotes for inspiration.

Happy birthday, John!  Thanks for helping to teach us to value our time with those we love!
 



Your Quality Time Reflections

We hope you take some time this month (and beyond!) to show your friends and family that you care about them and appreciate having them in your life.  That may mean spending a little extra time with them, calling them up, dropping a card in the mail, or reaching out in other ways.  In addition, if you enjoyed quality time with family and/or friends in the past in ways that you found particularly meaningful, feel free to share that, too.
  Whatever you do or did, we'd love to share it here in hopes of inspiring others to search out their own quality time! 


As this is a site available to anyone and everyone, please do take care to avoid using identifiable details when sharing about your quality time with friends and family.


From Susan:

I have been making an effort to spend more time on a regular basis with my elderly aunt and uncle.  They are somewhat isolated and dealing with lots of issues, so I make it a point to go over to their house once a week for breakfast.  My two cousins (their daughter and son), also make an effort to be there, too.  It's a "standing date" every Wednesday morning, which is nice, because it's something they can count on and look forward to on a weekly basis.  I spend a couple of hours there before going to work, and it's really great because we talk and laugh a lot, especially when we reminisce about my grandparents and my uncles who passed on a long time ago.  We have such a great time, that we forget about our problems, for a little while.  I'm really glad that I live nearby.  And since they are in the late 80's and not in great health, I make the effort to spend time with them while I still have them here.

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From Jenni:

It was sometime in late 2011 and, feeling nostalgic, I re-read a transcript of an interview that John had done on The View, I think.  In it he spoke about how he tried to keep in regular contact with his grandparents.  While my family's pretty close-knit and gets together for all of the major holidays and then some, I've never been much of a phone talker.  But something about reading that made me think that I really needed to call my Grandma M. more.  So I started phoning her every so often during my lunch breaks.  I treasure those phone calls now because my Grandma passed away in March 2012.  I am so grateful that John said what he did because, as a result, I have those memories.

A little footnote: My Grandma would call each of her kids and grandkids every year on their birthday.  One year I was out and she had to leave a message.  Thankfully, I never erased the message.  I have it saved now and when my birthday rolls around, I can hear my Grandma wishing me a happy birthday.  Something to think about.  Live conversations are always the best but you never know the impact of a recorded message you might leave for a loved one. 

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From Cindy:

As I mulled over the idea of Quality Time for John’s birthday I was also consciously mulling over *where* I had been spending my quality time for the past few years. We know through available articles and interviews that John loved to spend time with people in a variety of ways-including inviting people to his home. I’ve always enjoyed spending time with others, but in the past few years it’s often been outside my home at someone else’s house or through a trip, retreat or place such as a restaurant or park. Of course, I’m still planning those things but this year I’m making a conscious effort to plan more together times at my house as well.
 
I had started thinking about all of this back in the fall. I began doing this during the holidays.  I hosted a craft night (spur of the moment when the venue where we had planned to do this had to cancel) then the Christmas Eve family get-together. 
 
 I’ve also started keeping my niece and nephew at my house again-I used to do that when they lived across the street-but once they got into their dream home, it was ‘come to our house!’ (Now the ‘newness’ is wearing off  *wink* and they are wanting to come spend time here again.) 
 
My ‘adopted’ niece has asked if she can stay with me this summer as she works on her graduate degree. I live closer to the campus than she does so it would give her more study time and less travel time. I’m glad to be able to do this for her.
 
I live out, and only local friends, neighbors and family ‘drop by’ so it is something I actually do have to plan out.  I definitely need to host more craft times and church family gatherings this year.  I also will plan more often to invite friends to my house 'just because'. I’m looking forward to that!


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Quality Time Quotes

Below are some graphics you can use to extend your love and appreciation to friends and family via Facebook, email, or however you keep in touch online.  You might also consider inscribing one or two quotes on a snail mail card or just looking them over for inspiration.

      

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learnt the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything." ~~Muhammad Ali

"God asks that you let Him be a member of this family. Invite Him to sit at the head of your table, to bless the work of your hands and to let your work be a blessing to everyone." ~~Monica, Quality Time, Touched by an Angel

"Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." ~~Galatians 6:10


"Friendship is a sheltering tree." ~~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Friendship is a cadence of divine melody melting through the heart." ~~Charles Mildway

"In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is straight forward, and springs from the heart." ~~Cicero

"Put your family in the hands of God." ~~Andrew, Flights of Angels
, Touched by an Angel

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” ~~Anthony Brandt

"A happy family is but an earlier heaven." ~~George Bernard Shaw

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family; whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." ~~Jane Howard

“Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance."  ~~David Nicholls

"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over." ~~Samuel Johnson

"That's what being a family is all about: believing in each other in the best of times and in the worst of times and knowing that God will always help you through if you just open up your hands and reach out to Him." ~~Monica, Heaven's Portal
, Touched by an Angel

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." ~~Elbert Hubbard

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” ~~Ruth 1, 16-17

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one." ~~C.S. Lewis


“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." ~~John 13:34

"All the success in the world will not make you happy if you don't have your family to share it with." ~~Tess, The Impossible Dream, Touched by an Angel

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.” ~~Deb Caletti

“I sustain myself with the love of family.” ~~Maya Angelou


“When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.” ~~Alice Hoffman

“I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
my baby you'll be.”
~~ Robert N. Munsch, Love You Forever

"It's good to have family around." ~~Andrew, The Root of All Evil
, Touched by an Angel

“Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.” ~~Mother Teresa

"Home is the
nicest word there is." ~~Laura Ingalls Wilder

“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no aw, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path." ~~Agatha Christie

“When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.” ~~Joyce Brothers

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!” ~~Albert Einstein

"It's not about having a lot of friends, it's about being a good friend to the ones you've got." ~~Tess, What Are Friends For?
, Touched by an Angel

“We must take care of our families wherever we find them.” ~~Elizabeth Gilbert

“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.” ~~Mitch Albom, For One More Day


“I may not always be with you
But when we're far apart
Remember you will be with me
Right inside my heart”
~~ Marc Wambolt, Poems from the Heart


"Friends are worth fighting for." ~~Andrew, Only Connect, Touched by an Angel

“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend
.” ~~Albert Camus

 "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality." ~~Romans 12:10-13

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
~~1 Corinthians 13

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”  ~~Alfred, Lord Tennyson

               


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