Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
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Tag Archives: family
one year
The year of first’s is over. First Christmas without mom, her first birthday coming and going without her here to celebrate it, the first baby born in our family without mom around to fuss over her, and now the first anniversary of her death. Last year at this time I was in a small emergency room watching my mother gasp for each breath, looking a doctor in the eye and saying yes, I understood what it meant if they didn’t put her on a respirator and instead gave her meds to help her go to sleep. Of course I only knew what it meant in the moment, which was that it would end my mother’s many months of suffering, but for those of us who loved her it was the beginning of the grieving process which is really just one long bumpy road of goodbyes. At the end of one of my books I write: Some eight years later, when the earthly lives of my daddy and brother had safely made that transformation from flesh and blood to mist and memory, when the grief had finally settled itself comfortably into the undercurrent of my days and nights, my voice came back to me and I picked up a notebook, opened it to the first page, and I began to write. I’m not quite there yet…but I’m getting there.
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circle of life
I took this photograph over the weekend during a family barbecue. Aunt Bessie is 98 years old. My new granddaughter Brooklyn is only 8 weeks old. When I look at the two of them it feels as though I am looking at the whole of a woman’s life – the history of girlhood and school days, of friendships and lovers and work and marriage, the fierce new love a young mother feels when she holds her sleeping child, and the fierce grief a woman lives as she strokes her dying husband’s hand. Can you see it? All that has happened in the creases and lines of Bess’s beautiful face, and all that is yet to come in the smooth angelic face of my baby granddaughter. A life nearing its conclusion and one that is just beginning. The circle of life, strung out between their two ageless spirits like the glistening white pearls of Aunt Bessie’s necklace.
All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. ~Havelock Ellis
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friday fill-ins
1. I remember, I remember when my kids were younger. That’s a photo I took of Andy and Lizzi for our Christmas card one year, they were so cute!
2. Dear Mom I want you to know I can’t believe it will be a year next month since you died.
3. Is that my freakin’ age!!???
4. I’m trying to resist the temptation of buying more camera lenses.
5. I’m saving a hug just for you!
6. If I made a birthday list spending a day with my new granddaughter would definitely be on it!!!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a birthday dinner for Andy, tomorrow my plans include errands and lunch out with my hubby and Sunday, I want to go for a drive and try out my new wide angle camera lens!
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photo friday: young and old
This week’s Photo Friday challenge is Young and Old. Okay, I know my son Andy isn’t exactly old, although compared to his newborn daughter he is! In this photo I caught Brooklyn giving her old man a perfect little pout:)
Fathers, be good to your daughters…You are the god and the weight of her world. ~ John Mayor
friday fill-in
1. Frozen yogurt is my favorite summertime treat.
2. My favorite John Hughes movies is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
3. My granddaughter’s sweet little head is something I love to touch.
4. The full moon looked really cool last night, very Twilight!
5. I am looking down at my poofy tummy and thinking maybe I should lay off that frozen yogurt right now.
6. When daylight fades I usually fade too.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to music in the park, tomorrow my plans include getting a new DVR box for the TV and Sunday, I want to have lunch at the Penn Grill then watch Jake (our friend’s black lab) go for an enthusiastic swim in our pool!
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7 degress of moi
Joann, a new blogger buddy of mine, passed along the Kreative Blogger Award to me recently. If I accept the award I have to share seven of my favorite things with you. So here we go…
1. Well, if you read my blog regularly you can probably guess the first one, my new baby granddaughter, Brooklyn. She came over on Sunday for her first family birthday dinner and her poor mommy had to beg to get a turn to hold her own baby!
2. Spell check. I’m actually a pretty good speller but for some reason I love to see the little red underline appear under words and then get that drop down list of choices, I find it very satisfying. It’s weird, I know.
3. The moment every day when my husband comes home…I hear the back door open and his footsteps as he walks in, the soft swishing sound as he slides his briefcase under the desk in the kitchen, and then his voice, tired but relieved to be done with another busy day as he looks for me and says, “I’m home!”
4. My new camera, I carry it around in the crook of my arm like it’s a baby. It’s weird, I know.
5. Having sisters. I feel like I gypped my daughter Lizzi only giving her a brother. Maybe if I named my camera Samantha, Lizzi could think of it as her little sister?
6. The first cup of coffee in the morning (if it’s snowing or raining outside it tastes twice as good!).
7. Losing myself in a good book, which hasn’t happened in a long time. Partly because my brain is a bit fried from the past year’s ups and downs, and partly because I just haven’t found the right book:(
special delivery
The theme today for PhotoHunt Saturday is “Rocks”. I do have some actual pictures of rocks, but I couldn’t help myself, just one more post about baby Brooklyn. Because as you may have guessed…being a new grandparent rocks! A friend of mine pointed out that in the second shot she’s practicing holding her cell phone! See more PhotoHunt Saturday pics here.
Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~ Don Herold
bookbabie 