children

New year – New Life

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A few days ago I start reflecting on the year that was coming to a close. 

Twenty thousand twenty-five was full of surprises, challenges, losses, and a new life. 

I’ve told the story of my family, my childhood, my relationship with my brothers before. No need to rehash that here, only to say, both my brother’s passed this year.

They died within four months of each other. Years of alcohol abuse and illness took them both too soon at 74 and 71. My only expression of emotion on their passing was a hope that they both are in a place now where they are totally healed…mentally and physically. 

It was a sobering feeling to realize I am the last one living from my nuclear family.  I was suddenly faced with the reality of my own mortality. 

I often used to say I was the most normal person in my family. Now that I’m 70, I hope I am also the healthiest and I have many more years ahead.  

On a happier note, after the loss, new life begins. After 8 years of marriage and dealing with so much illness and so many hospitalizations, our youngest son and his wife welcomed a baby boy into their lives.

Baby MC was due January 11, but decided he was going to be our 2025 surprise. Born healthy at 2am on December 27.  

I was blessed to be in the delivery room and cut his cord. A very strange feeling cutting through the dense fibrous tissue.   I needed reassurance that it caused no pain.  All it took was a few firm snips with what were very sharp scissors, it was done. 

Oh I wish I could show you a photo but parents request that no photos be posted online. He is gorgeous, with the most adorable little chipmunk cheeks. Ten fingers, ten toes and the cutest little nose. 

For three months I had been in the doldrums, but in an instant I was keenly reminded of the joys in life.  

The old pass away, but each birth brings hope for the future. It is the circle of life.  Years, months and days tick by but as each day ends, I fall asleep in anticipation and hope for the new day. 

My prayer for today is that the Lord grants me many more days and years to share and enjoy this little one as he grows into a young man. 

A Time for Everything

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven—

A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.

     ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 NASB

Today I am dancing

God’s Gifts

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“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” — Eric Hoffer

Giving thanks and counting my three sons among my many blessings today.

Every time I was expecting I did hope for a daughter but God knew better what I needed.

I am blessed to have a close relationship with all of them and they show me in many ways their love for me. I was an extremely meek quiet person but through them I found so much strength. ❤️

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord..”
Psalm 127:3

https://emyloomwordswovenwithinmyheart.com/poems-and-prayers/mother-of-three-sons/

Photo: 1999

Fifty Year Celebrations

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Someone ask me recently about who I attended the prom with. As I never went a day of high school, it is an obvious assumption I never went to a prom. I would have graduated in 1974 but left school in March 1970. Up until that point I was a straight A student and really without a lot of effort.

In addition, I have never attended any type of ball or fancy occasion. I have never had an evening gown or even a fancy party dress. I guess I’d have to go on a cruise to need a fancy dress, but you are never going to catch me on a cruise ship either!

So, back to the prom. I contacted one of my childhood friends, who I would have graduated with, to inquire about when the prom was held for the Conroe Tigers class of 1974. Interestingly enough, she told me her and her husband did not go, something about it being too foo-foo. However, she sent out a request on social media and found that prom night was April 27, 1974.

Where was I? I was in Anchorage, Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base and I had a 9-day old newborn son. Aaron Kelly was born on Thursday morning, April 18, 1974. Back then was still at a time when we did not know the sex of our babes beforehand. I really, really wanted a daughter and for the slightest moment after he was born, I was maybe a little disappointed but that quickly faded when I held that fair haired infant in my arms.

In May, the class of 1974 will be celebrating 50 years since their graduation but next week, I will help my son, one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received, celebrate his 50th birthday.

I was only 18 when this very special gift entered my world. Since that first day, he has been a blessing and joy in my life. He has always brought joy to my heart, made me smile, made me proud, made me know I was loved. He served his country and he served over 22 years as a police officer. During that time he saved many lives, rescued abducted teens, sought justice for the elderly and abused, and helped people on one of the worst days of their lives. One day, I believe he will see the results of all the good he did. Although there is no thanks sometimes in this world, my hope is that in the end God will show him all the fruits of his actions. I hope to be there to see them too.

I never experienced the traditional high school teen events and I don’t have a 50th Class Reunion to attend but I am not feeling deprived, I was blessed with a gift that never stopped giving.

I love him and he loves me and that’s the way it will always be.

Field of Free Foxglove

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I came home Thursday evening and as it had not rained in the past three hours and no rain was expected for another three, I took the opportunity to mow the grass. The next rain break could be more than a week away and the grass would be two feet tall by then.

As I cruise around my 3.5 acres of lawn (moss and grass) I am in awe that almost the entire yard is flanked by fields of digitalis purperea commonly known as foxglove. It is not native to the Pacific Northwest; originally from Europe and Turkey it grows well with our cool temperatures and rain.

Digitalis purpurea is poisonous to both wildlife and humans but it is the source of the medication digitalis that is prescribed by doctors to strengthen the heart and regulate its beat.

I have over the years encouraged the spread of these tall beauties but never really managed more than a few patches scattered around the yard. Until this year, when several large fields appeared all around the edge of the forest. As I mowed, I stopped to admire them and took several photographs but none really captured their awesome beauty. After years of hoping for such a full display, seeing them brought joy to my mowing task.

I find mowing therapeutic, it doesn’t take a lot of thought and it is satisfying to watch the wild overgrown sections turn into an organized evenly trimmed lawn. Often when I mow, I use the time to sort out my thoughts and try to put to rest things that are troubling my heart. This week there was a lot on my heart. My ‘Old Friend’ who I wrote about a few weeks back, had lost her son in a tragic way just two days prior.

The pain and heartbreak is overwhelming. We can’t understand why but I want to see these beautiful large fields of foxglove as a sign that God cares for our hearts even in the most difficult times. I want to believe that even though our hearts are weak and broken right now, these free fields of foxgloves standing tall are a sign that even though it may take time, our hearts will be strong and the irregular beat that this sorrow, pain and grief has caused, will in time, return to a normal beat. It may never fully heal, the scar will remain, but we will go on and find beauty in life again.

Child of my Childhood

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just a young girl, a child
very meek and very mild

suffering abuse
of adult mistrust and misuse

desperate to escape
the next incident of childhood rape

summer of nineteen sixty-nine
appeared a tall hero and seemingly lifeline

not as much a child as man
together, young formed a plan

to many foolish though it seemed
somehow a life was redeemed

a child within the union set
left behind the evil threat

this child born of desperate time
a living doll that was mine

infant years held strong love
this doll of mine i write of

so many years between
understanding was lost… unseen

mother child in heart retains
regrets of youthful mistakes and pains

now this child of my childhood
long has left age of boyhood

starting now a fiftieth year
since child became a mother here

love, frustration, hope and despair
all have been a part of this pair

both older now and wiser still
overcoming lost good will

reaching out to understand
events that all the years have spanned

child of my childhood know
love was always there to bestow

to a child who forever changed
a life that needed rearranged

the years that life will here to span
know you were part of God’s intended plan

from a burden path a child was set free
heart full of gratitude forever for thee

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Raindrops and Tears

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image

A grey rainy drizzly day and I’m all tucked in my nest reflecting on the the year nearly finished and season ahead.

Mindlessly I switch the TV to a movie, ‘My Sister’s Keeper.” It was loosely based on a story about the family who conceived a daughter to save their older daughter who had leukemia. In that family everything turned out well. In this movie they delved deeper into issues and conflicts of that decision.

There are so many sides to the issue and although I could empathize with the mother in this movie, I could see how she had lost her way through this familiar battle.

When you have a child at deaths door, you never want to give up. You are the warrior. You will do whatever it takes to fight for your child. You will stand guard. You will search for every medical intervention. You will stand your ground with nurses and doctors. You will repeat your child’s story over and over until someone hears. You will stay up nights and listen to their every breath. You will not care what the establishment thinks of you. You will never give up hope because the alternative is to painful to face.

This mother had to face the fact that shear will, endurance, strength, love, and denial would not keep her daughter alive.

The tears begin flowing like the rain outside. Not only because it was sad that the daughter died but because the mother, try as she might, after all the years she spent caring, watching, battling, it was not enough. I felt her struggle, her defeat, her helplessness, her loss.