To Julie and Melissa who hated seeing us sad and were happy to see our joy return. ************************* My mom always told me that when she left this planet, she’d hang around and leave little signs that she was still near. She’s done just that. Soon after she left, my daughters Julie and Melissa and I began finding coins. Lots of coins. Everybody finds coins, right? Lucky pennies? But telling you HOW, WHEN and WHERE we find these coins, that’s…
We’d only been gone a few days. We’d been in covid hiding for months and we needed a Pacific “fix” real bad. It was the end of October and the Monterey coast was beginning to open up to tourists. We all thought covid was leaving and normalcy was about to return…..how silly of all of us. Covid was just around every corner. We kept our distance from people and instead spent our time with nature. We filled up our senses,…
(He was almost two years old when I wrote this, he’s now ten.) It’s early, early morning. When they pull up, he’s all cuddled in his baby quilt, securely fastened in his car seat and sound asleep. I can feel his mama’s worry when I open the car door and slip in. I keep her talking with my questions. She’s scared. She has a hard time trying to tell me what’s wrong. It makes me realize it hasn’t ever…
A few years ago life was clipping along for us and we seemed to be dodging bullets that were hitting many others. I’ve always kinda figured I paid my dues during a pretty nasty “childhood” and should cruise the rest of the ride. The early part of my adulthood was good; I had a happy marriage and four little girls I was crazy about and I loved being their mom. But eventually the bullets began to hit… again and again…
Its 8 a.m. My mom’s in the hospital. I’m watching her sleep. Usually she can sense when I’m in the room and her eyes pop open, but not this morning. I’m here to talk with her surgeon. We had a meeting scheduled for yesterday but he was two hours late and I eventually had to leave. I forgave him later when he called me at home to apologize with a soft southern drawl. Soft southern drawls melt…
He’s sixteen now, he does on-line schooling, has a car and a job. But he wasn’t always sixteen. Once he was an adorable, sweet little boy. Not that he isn’t adorable and sweet now but well, he’s sixteen! Bobby is our final grandchild. He was born at a time when both of his parent’s worked so he was a family affair. My daughter Melissa and I weren’t working so between us, we cared for Bobby while his parent’s worked….
A girlfriend of mine told me about a hundred years ago that everything has a price. Sometimes when you want something you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to pay the price. Sometimes you know the price and you get to decide and if it’s too high, you let it go. Sometimes you don’t know the price, then it becomes a gamble. Then you have to decide the pros and cons of that gamble. I’ve never forgotten her…
As far as I know, there are no perfect lives, no perfect families. I guess there are people who like to THINK they’re perfect and therein lies their imperfection. And there are people who like others to THINK they have a perfect life and, why? I don’t know. But so far, well I think PERFECT is a sweet fairy tale. Or maybe if we’re ALL imperfect, that makes us perfect? I don’t know. All I know is there’s no…
This daughter? Pure delight. I could write about her forever. She was born in a Connecticut hospital on a gurney in the middle of the hallway being quickly rolled to the delivery room. We didn’t quite make it! My mom came for a visit and held her when she was only days old and sang to her. As she sang, we heard a soft little baby sound humming along in response to her grandma’s song. There was something magical…
Teeny, delicate, quiet, adorable and sweet. That’s who Melissa was when she made her first appearance. She arrived seven surprising minutes after her sister. I was expecting her sister, baby number three but number four? No, I wasn’t expecting her! And neither were the team of Obstetricians who assured me every time I asked, that there was only one baby in there…..no matter how many limbs I thought I felt! That was many years ago. In today’s world, I’d…