O.k., so this is a staged photo – they don’t ever hold hands! I watch my kids walk down our lane as they get off of the bus and come home from school. I can’t help but get a smile on my face at how beautiful of a picture it is to me. Two sisters and a brother walking and talking about the days events – being friends. I feel like I want to freeze the moment! They look so innocent and happy and full of life. I hope they will remember this moment as much as I will. As a mom, some days I just want them to be older and more independent. Then I experience a moment like this that makes that feeling flee like it’s the plague – I never want them to grow older. Ah, the realities of a mother’s emotions! To put it simply – I love to be a mother and watch these children grow into the people they are becoming.
I have been working on a Christmas project for my parents. This past year they moved from the home that my family grew up in for over three decades. Even though it was sad and especially hard for them, it has been good and is o.k. My project is to make a book that celebrates the life that we all lived while residing in our “home”. I solicited my siblings to write down memories of the past and as a result I have spent the past month reminiscing of how lucky of a person I am! I have wonderful parents and brothers and a sister. All of us mostly focused on the good times – and certainly we were a normal family that had its ups and downs. What I find interesting and really comforting (now that I’m a parent) is to think that our conscience really holds on to the good things – especially after the time has ended. I’m reminded of this every time I move. I find it easier to hold on to all of the good things about that life and seem to forget the things I didn’t like. I wonder if other people do that to? I am truly grateful for the family I grew up in and the things they did in the past and do now, in the present, to inspire me for good. They have helped in defining who I have become.
One of my favorite Wicked songs is, “For Good.” I use it to apply in many facets of my life, but I find that is it very appropriate for how I am feeling at this moment. Here are the words:
“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them, and we help them in return. Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true, But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood, who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime, so let me say before we part: So much of me is made of what I learned from you, you’ll be with me like a hand print on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend. Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood, who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you…I have been changed for good.
And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for the things I’ve done you blame me for. But then, I guess we know there’s blame to share, and none of it seems to matter any more…
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? I do believe that I have been changed for the better. And because I knew you, because I knew you…I have been changed for good.”