Debbie-Downer

   As parents there aren't enough  love letters that we can leave behind for our children. Each day gives us the opportunity to plant a tree for them, write a song for them, or just tell them the truth. Our children aren't always seen by the world the same way we see them. Sometimes we see our kids as bullies and troublemakers, but their teachers swear they are joys!. Sometimes we see simple, big-hearted kids where other kids see a big intimidating smart-mouth. We may never reconcile our view with the world view of our children, but even when they fail...even when they do something so stupid that it leaves you wondering how you will ever forgive them, please remember that at some point in the past you were wholeheartedly in love with this child. You saw potential and spirit and love. You saw yourself and you saw G-d. That person is still there somewhere. That baby, your baby still deserves love. You cannot and should not ever re-write history. Hold the loveliness of that baby in your heart and love that child for that moment in time. Reconcile when you can....but you can't write off the feelings and love letters that are scattered all over your house and your yard. Even when you cannot reconcile, you owe it to yourself and your soul to remember the good times, the good parts.
   And when the day comes that I have to hang my head as a parent and say "what was my child thinking?", I hope that I can see the difference between a bad person and a bad mistake and I hope that I am mature enough, and patient enough, not with them, but with myself, that I might treat myself kindly and not let the world beat me up. I hope that I am mature enough to ask questions and hear all sides rather than just get angry and make things worse.
   Are there fences that cannot be mended? Sure.  Are some grown children best left to their own devices? Sure. Should you ever pretend that years of love and sacrifice and smiles and high-fives never existed? No. Sometimes we may have to love at a distance...whether it's through miles or through years, but I think that I would rather live in the past with a child that I adore than live in the present denying that I ever had a relationship.
  I don't know how other parents cope when their kids fail. I just hope, I ache with hope, that I will be a real person and not a "mommy" about things. But I know that as I sit here and look at their baby pictures that I am so in love with the little people that I knew and I am in agony that I have to watch them grow up at all.
    The world sucks and people are mean...or reverse that, the world is mean and people suck. All I know is that I am tired of being part of the problem. I don't know what people mean when they say, "Set your child up for success." How do I do that when the world is full of people looking to hate anything good?  Kids should be allowed to be kids. And we should be "allowed" to love them through their childhood without constantly looking over our shoulders for the bad guys knowing that so many people are looking back at us.
  

tread lightly

You can  determine if a person has created their own religion  by watching them create their own enemies. ~mama shey

I Hope You Like Me

   I am not good with anniversaries. I never remember my own wedding anniversary, and if my birthday were any other day but January first, I probably would forget it. Today Marsha called and said that she needed to be alone tomorrow...it took me  a second. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my father's death. I don't hold a memorial or vigil any day of the year for any thing. I think grief happens daily and in new and different ways to everyone. I, even in that moment of passing, experience a joyous and loving grief. 
    I knew my father. I knew what he said and what he meant, I know when he was wrong and when he was right. I follow the good advice and smile and roll my eyes at the bad. Not all parents are a gift. Not all parents are a blessing. I see this everyday. I see my own failures each day.
   I knew Walt...and I liked him. During one of our last fights I told him that I loved him...not words that are ever spoken in our household, but they needed to be spoken that day even in anger. I told him I loved him  but more importantly that I liked him. Walt was speechless. He didn't understand what that meant.
   In life my children sometimes you love your family and sometimes you tolerate them, but when you get to know your flesh and blood deeply and you appreciate them and learn that the truth is that you LIKE them, then you have something. The respect you hold for me as mom or the trust you have in me will never come from our shared blood, it will always come, if it comes at all, through your ability to stop looking at me as a mother and start liking me as a person. You are not "my" children. I don't own you. But I hope to spend many hours throughout your adulthood getting to now you and letting you get to know me. In doing this we open the door for joyous living, joyous sharing, and joyous  grief.
  

hips and hearts

 The truth is in youth we are physically bendable, but fragile on the inside. Eventually, things change and we become physically fragile and our hearts learn how to bend,  not break. The true test   of your adulthood will come when you worry more about breaking your hip than your heart.
The world may break you physically, but they can't touch a heart that bounces. I love you. You are going to be okay.