Marshall Ramsey

I got up earlier than normal to work on my 9/11 memorial cartoon.  Of course, my son has a conference, so my morning is more complicated.  My wife will go to the conference as I draw here and watch over my other two boys — but that’s OK.  Raising my kids is my most important job.  With all the daily pressures we have in our lives it is easy to forget that.  Our life is a stove with four pots.  Sometimes family gets put on the back burner with work boils over.  Add to it a couple more pots and suddenly you feel more like a juggler than a dad.  I’m just afraid something or someone will get burned.

As I’m drawing this, I’m thinking of the people trapped in the Twin Towers.  The people on the doomed airline flights. The men and women who perished in the Pentagon. The would give anything to have one more day with their families. And their families would give anything to have them back.

I’m busy. But never too busy for my family.  The tragedy of the 9/11 reminds me that we should never take our lives for granted. That we should seize on to every moment. Because like the victims on that clear Tuesday morning, a normal day could suddenly turn into our last.

I’m sitting in the gray, empty Clarion-Ledger building, where I’ve been for about an hour.  I’m sleepy. Very sleepy.  It’s early, but I am getting a lot done. Silence is a great assistant.

Today’s to-do list includes a couple of cartoons and then the radio show. In between, I have some events to plan.  Rest is not an option. One of the impacts of being made part-time is that I’m  determined to never again experience the hopeless feeling of sitting in an office, having your job cut and being told your hard work doesn’t matter.

It does matter.  Yours does, too.  That’s one of the problems we have in this country right now:  A crisis of confidence. We’ve been made to feel that what we do makes no difference. You work hard and out of the blue, you get cut.

You do make a difference.

I read this blog this morning that success guru Tony Robbins linked to it on his Twitter account. It’s the last posts from a man who died this morning. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer on June 11. He passed away on August 6. He faced the end of his life with courage, a positive attitude and in the process, inspired thousands.  I’m inspired. He reminded me of how short our life is on this earth. And that we have to make the most of it.

A friend of mine tweeted that I could find the positive in a pile of crap. Trust me, it’s not by nature. It’s by choice. It’s by necessity.

Now to get to work. I have to take advantage of every breath. Like you, I have a difference to make today.