aunts

Mid-summer @54

Posted by

0

He and the children and the tiny ones took me to the zoo for my birthday adventure. It was hot, of course. July in Southeast Texas. The zoo we visited is small and canopied with tall shade giving trees. A lot more bearable for the tiny ones and this old one.

We followed with a train ride around the little lake and then on to eat a Mexican food luncheon. The cafe gave me a caramel drenched brownie and the tiny ones helped me eat it. Actually, he fed it to the three of us since they were in my lap. The two of them beat me to most of the bites.

We had a lot of laughing and playing. What else could I wish for than to have all of them with me?

Our daughter and her tiny one spent the whole weekend with us, leaving on Monday. We went to see my Daddy’s sister for a brief visit. Didn’t get to see the other one on that trip.

Seeing my aunt filled me with such emotion. I get it every time I see either of my Daddy’s sisters or my Mama’s sisters. It is hard to describe the feeling. I liken it to the sense of being adrift at sea and finally washing up on a welcoming shore.

And yet, it starkly reminds me of the many long years he and I have been without our mothers and our fathers. Years that they might have still spent with us. That loss seems to echo in me more as the years pass, rather than less.

All I can do is love the tiny ones extra for the ones gone on ahead and then love them some more for me. And try to be a welcoming shore for them as long as I am allowed to remain.

Kitchen window. Stained glass from him for my birthday. New curtain panel stitched and installed yesterday.

Happy 2018!

Posted by

0

Happy New Year!!!

Has another Christmas leaped through my life?  How fast it went!  I have started this year full of optimism.  Unusual for me to be in this place at this time of the year.  The darkness of the winter days hasn’t overtaken my mood.

Perhaps, it won’t do so at all this year.  I have been resigned to coping with the low moods all my adult life.  And yet there is always a part of me that believes it doesn’t have to be so.  If I claim I have a choice in how I feel and how I behave, then I must believe it and so prove it to myself.

I don’t have any resolutions for this year.  I have my continuing path of proving myself able to be better at each turn.

One thing I once believed has changed.  I used to believe I was strong and able to withstand pain.  I failed at withstanding. I became crushed in so many places.  Then, I believed I could never heal.  After a while, I decided I could heal, but the crushed places would ever be fragile.  Time never made a difference in the process.  Just lately, over the past year or two, I discovered something has been healing my broken places.  Love.  Just love.  Several girls have come into my life over the past few years.  First, my brother’s granddaughters brought a window of hope. Now, my own granddaughters have broken down walls.

I think about my own grandmothers.  I remember how important they are to me even now so many years after they left this life.  My aunts continue to impact my life.  If I can matter to any of these girls half as much as those women matter to me, I will be loved more than I deserve.

I wonder how things will be between all these little girls as we grow to know each other. And I look so very forward to the love that grows between us.

Happy 2018!  Happy Life! Happy Love!

P.S.  He continues to lift me up to Him.  His continued prayers for me and support of my off-beat self has no doubt had a larger impact on my current state of being than I will know in this life.  My love always loves me.  And besides………..he needs my love to keep him warm!

sky and snow