Life is funny

Life is a funny thing. We enter the world without a road map, without a guide book and are expected to find our way through it and hopefully leave the world a better place than when we entered it or at least no worse.
Somewhere along the way we realize we are not journeying alone. I guess the first person we notice is our mother because of her all important role in our life. She feeds us, cleans us when it’s needed and comforts us when we are feeling distressed. Mom is our security and our first love. Gradually our little eyes open to find other interesting people, like our daddy, who knows how to tease and romp and can be quite entertaining to watch. Then we find other little people, maybe not as small as us but still small enough to peak our curiosity. Each day it seems our tiny world expands exponentially until one day we find ways to interact with the world around us. This whole process has been witnessed by parents again and again and each time it is a mesmerizing miracle to behold.
Our world takes a huge leap when we enter school. For the first time we are exposed to influences that are not directly controlled by our parents. Some of these are wondrous and exciting others are unsettling and frightening. We not only catch every childhood disease known to man that first year of school but we also catch on to how people treat and manipulate others and learn how they expect us to behave.
I don’t remember much about my early years of school but I do remember that I got in trouble in first grade for being a tattle-tell. I even know who it was that told me to go tell the teacher (she didn’t get in trouble so I doubt she remembers the incident). Isn’t it strange that this would stick in my brain after all these years? I was shy and unsure of myself those first years of school and I watched the other kids to learn how to act. But overall I was a happy little girl and liked school.
Somewhere around fifth grade things changed for me. I got a best friend. She was my confidant, my idol, my playmate and my best buddy. My dad used to say we were each other’s shadow. We used to pretend that we were sisters. This friendship was probably the one that shaped me more than any relationship I had outside my immediate family. Her family was from a much higher social-economic class than mine and she was the youngest, the only daughter and the last child at home. I was the 5th of 12 children and the second oldest daughter. We were so very different and still we played and dreamed in tandem. We were inseparable from 5th grade until our junior year in High School when our activities and boyfriends kept us busy and gradually we spent less time together.
But from that experience and many other experiences in the years since, I have learned that everyone needs a special friend, maybe a sister or brother, maybe a cousin or school friend, but we all need someone to share our joys and our sorrows. So look around at the people that you share your life with and appreciate the friends and family that brighten your world. Take time to tell them they are special to you.
I entered this world without a guide book or a road map but somehow I was blessed to find a series of guides that led me to where I am and I feel it is where I am meant to be. Thank you my friends for accepting me as I am and encouraging me to make the most of my life.

When I was young I thought my mom had super powers. She could fix anything that was broken, kiss away Boo Boos, sing me to sleep when I was tired and cheer me up when I was sad. I believed she never slept because she was awake to tuck me in and kiss me good-night and was up in time to make breakfast for me before I woke up.
By the time I started school and I realized that no, she wasn't a super hero, she was a genius. She could tutor me in math, proof read my English or help with a science project. She knew everything about religion and baking and sewing and on and on and on.
Years went by and soon I was in junior high. I looked at my mom and saw a magician. She could turn chores into games and create art from scraps. She could tuck her three youngest daughters into bed and then magically make three Easter dresses appear before they woke up on Easter morning. There they would be laid out on the couch with white shoes, white gloves and Easter bonnets. That is a magic trick I will never forget.
By the time I reached high school I thought I knew everything. I knew without a doubt that my mother was a talented artist and a dreamer. She was the only mother I knew that painted murals on the dining room wall and wrote Christmas pageants for church, composing the music herself.
As a very young adult my world suddenly crumbled around me and there Mama stood as my rock, close beside me to hold me as I cried and to assure me that God had a plan. She listened as I insisted that it wasn’t fair, not judging just quietly assuring me that “the sun will come up tomorrow.”
The sun did return and with it three daughters each one arriving on the heels of the previous one. I found myself a young mother constantly busy with diapers, laundry, picking up toys and teaching my little ones not to play in the toilet or the fish tank, I suddenly realized that my mother was a saint and a martyr. I marveled at all the love and patience she had given us and wondered how she survived twelve children. But she didn’t merely survive us, she found the time and energy to offer each of us unconditional love, making sure we knew that we were wonderful and special.
Now I look around and see that I have grown older and they say that with age comes wisdom, though I don’t feel very wise. I now see my mother more clearly and I realize that she is all those things and more. She is a super hero, a genius, a magician and artist and dreamer, my rock and a saint but most of all she is my Angel Mother who loves me, inspires me, encourages me and makes me want to be a better person than I am. She is a kind and gentle woman, a loving mother and grandmother, a quiet light that warms all how come in contact with her. She is the woman that I hope to someday be. Mama, I love you!

A Unique Family

I was not raised in a normal family. The average American family has 2.5 children. I was the 5th of 12 children. The majority of US families are blended or single parent households. I was raised by two loving parents that both resided in my home. Currently most homes have both parents working outside the home. I was blessed to have a loving “stay at home mom” (but she was a working mother, remember 12 children). Those weren’t the only things that separated my family from the norm. My dad traveled in his work but was always an active parent, present at the birth of every child and home for all the major holidays I remember. We had a family band and performed locally and regionally at weddings, nursing homes, school dances and bars. Mama was an undiscovered artist writing Christmas pageants, painting murals on the walls and allowing her children equal creativity even to the point of my brother’s painting their bedroom walls black and covering their ceiling with swirling red and white stripes dotted with stenciled blue stars. She didn’t flinch when they replaced their light fixture with a black light and covered the black walls with psychedelic posters; after all it was the 70s.
But don’t get the idea that we were free spirited "hippy" children. We were a grounded Catholic family that said the family rosary, went to mass on Sunday and weekdays and sang in church more than anywhere else, often making up the whole choir. Mama read us bedtime stories from the Lives of the Saints; I believe she was hoping we would follow in their footsteps.
I remember once when we were performing Christmas music at the State Children’s Home in Wyoming and a little boy came up to my brother and said, “Your family is weird.” My brother never missed a beat as he smiled and replied, “I think the word you are looking for in unique.” From that day on I have always believed I was the product of a unique family and I always smiled at that thought.
When I married Steve, who most people describe as a playful, guy that forgot to grow up, and we began our family how could we expect them to grow up to be anything but unique.
Our girls started their lives in Wyoming surrounded by enough cousins, aunts and uncles to fill our home to over-flowing. So when we moved to Indiana where we had no family my youngest asked with all sincerity, “But who will come to our birthday.” We soon learned that you don’t really have to share blood to be family and there were wonderful friends that opened their hearts, homes and families to us so we could share the holidays. With this change we realized that some of the family traditions that worked in Casper with a very large family didn’t work well with our smaller crew so the girls began to create new traditions. Thus began the commemorating of Dios de los Muertos at the Art Museum for Halloween (whenever possible), dressing up as Indians and Pilgrims on Thanksgiving, and the afternoon Thanksgiving “craft with a twist competition” after the meal instead of football (remember all my children are girls) of course Steve and the husbands still have the option of football if they feel the need, the annual cutting of the Christmas tree as a family and the Christmas family crossword puzzle (where every question is about someone or some event in the family’s history).
We are a close family but each has their separate interests and calling. Tana is my oldest and she and Nic have a son Cohen. Nic is a photographer and Tana a lawyer. Angie and Nick (yes, they are both named Nick, just to make it confusing for me when I’m old) own and run and bagel/sandwich shop and grille. They have three children, Calvin, Henry and Marley and live just outside our town on a three acre mini-farm. Stephanie our youngest is single and works as a therapist for a community mental health center. She likes to claim the title of “Favorite Aunt and Spoiler of the Grandchildren.”
Steve and I have good-a-nuf health. Good enough health to allow us to continue working, Steve with computers and me in mental health. We are members of the community music club and I still sing at the church but we spend most of our free time enjoying our children and our grandchildren. I teach them things they need to know and Steve teaches them how to get in trouble.
So I am the product of a unique family and I raised my children in a unique family and now I sit back and watch with pride as they raise their children in their own unique families. Life is good!