Family: My sister and I with our brother on his wedding day.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Family
7 for Seven
It’s no secret I’m not much of a morning person unless there is a Spin class or coffee involved. And as for Mondays…well Mondays can suck it! So when Mary of the awesometastic Contrary Mom started doing her 7 for Seven I thought, heeey here was the perfect way to chase the Monday Blues away by being thankful for just seven things that happened or didn’t happen during the week before.
As it turned out, 7 for Seven originated at Key + Arrow and in their words:
Let’s face it // Mondays stink. Or at least we typically expect them to stink. That is why, every Monday, we post seven positives from the previous seven days of the week as a reminder of what we have so that the week starts out on an upswing. There is much truth in the belief that happy people attract good things, so it is important to start the week out right. Sometimes it’s the more grand, but other times, it’s the simple things.
This year however, I want to change my Mondays suck thinking by being thankful for all the goodness in my life. So without further ado, I give you my first Seven for 2014:
My hope is that by turning my focus to all that I have to be grateful for at the start of the week, I can carry that “positivity + balance + bliss” with me throughout the days ahead.
I would love to hear what your first 7 for Seven for 2014 would be. Please feel free to share your seven with me below!
Here’s to a great week!
Fathers & Daughters
Father’s Day…Geez! Always brings up the ‘daddy issues’…well at least for me.
Fathers are the first and often the most important men in our lives. Whether we grew up with or without them, whether they were emotionally available or distant, they provided us with more than DNA.
Their view of the world most often became our view of the world, the way they felt about us, often became the way we felt about ourselves. Our worlds are largely moulded consciously or not by our mothers’ men. By our Daddies. Our Papas. Our Pops.
There are men with kids and then there are FATHERS – men who cherish the blessings they helped God create. Today we celebrate these men: Daddies, god-fathers and father figures. As long as I’ve known myself, this has been just another Sunday only with an elephant in the room. Long story short: My father was not around. This year though was supposed to be different. This year we were supposed to be celebrating my brother…but God had other plans. And so now, I cannot help thinking about the man who was absent for most of our lives. You know it doesn’t matter how old you get, your mother is always going to be your mother…your father on the other hand…
Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made
– John Mayer
Funny how things change with time and yet a lot remains the same. As I’ve matured, I have changed my mind and opinions and my way of doing things yet the feelings for and about my father remain. I wonder what was it exactly that made him leave. I asked my mother about it once and all she could offer at the time was that he had changed. In my quiet moments, I’ve often wondered, what was it that caused the change. Was he just not ready to have another child far less three? Did he not think us worth being around for?
And right there folks…is the rub of it all. Did he not think us worth being around for? Vernette-speak for “I wasn’t worth the effort.”
There are times I feel like I want answers to my questions but I tell myself that those answers may never come.Even now, does he never wonder about the three children now grown-ups he left behind? After many attempts to find/get in touch with my father it seems he does not wish to be found. I have to make peace with that. I have to forgive and let him go.
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
– John Mayer
Scary, because I think sometimes I might make the same mistakes he did…not the leaving the father of my children with three babies to take care of part…but the cowardice of the act itself. I don’t want to be a coward. I don’t want to be someone who runs away from a blessing because I’m scared.
I’m past the age of wanting a ‘daddy’…ok a sugar daddy maybe but um…that’s another post for poorer times. I try to think about this from his point of view: Maybe he was scared, maybe he wasn’t ready for more children…maybe him not being around was a blessing in itself. What if he was there and that turned out to be worse than an absent father?
My journey has been what it has been thus far. I had a mother who did her absolute best to raise us. I never felt the ‘lack’ of a father…not really. She loved us enough for two parents. I wouldn’t change that. I do hope to meet him someday and maybe have some coffee and chat but who knows what the future holds. What I do know though, is that I will take my time and make the best possible choice when I choose the daddy for the children I want to have someday.
Devastated
I am devastated.
The little person I have loved since the first moment I knew of his existence and was so excited to meet and prayed for and waited 29 weeks in joyful hope for, was born and returned to God just after 9:00 p.m. on Monday 10th June, 2013.
When my brother called to say that my sister-in-law was in labour, my sister and I wasted no time getting to the hospital. I remember our excited conversation on the car ride there. We went through the gamut of emotions as we waited with his grandparents, excitement, wonder and just plain happiness for our family. FINALLY! It was happening.
Then heartbroken when we heard the news, ‘Baby didn’t make it.’
We removed the baby bag we had with us then. The bag filled with items so lovingly bought for him. Then we waited patiently to meet him.
He was small, just over two pounds. He had a full head of hair. ‘Ten fingers, ten toes and one nose’ as my sister lovingly said. He looked like my brother. He was perfect. We held him. We prayed. We cried. We took photos and we have his footprints…treasures that will be forever cherished.
All week, I have been waking up having to remind myself that yes, it did happen. And the sad thing is I am his aunt. I cannot begin to imagine what my sister-in-law is feeling.
I remember my cousins and I were liming a few months ago and we were all talking about whether we wanted a boy or a girl, as if we had a say…I wanted a nephew. I remember saying I wanted a nephew because my brother is a good man and he is going to be an even better Dad and I wanted my kids to have an older cousin who would be loving towards them the way I know my brother will raise his sons to be. I remember saying we need more men like my brother in our family.
I mourn for the chance to shower this child with all the love I still have overflowing for him. When we say goodbye, it will be more than just that final funeral goodbye. It will be goodbye to the adventure of watching him grow, feeding him, telling him about his grandmother and the ‘sweet’ names we imagine she would have called him. Goodbye to the toddler, teenager, big brother, loving cousin and adult we imagined him to grow up be over the last 29 weeks. We will say goodbye to the potential of this baby boy so loved by all of us.
I am so proud of my brother and sister-in-law. Throughout all of this, they have maintained that God is in charge. And while I needed a minute or 10 to be angry at God and ask Him why everything in our lives must be so hard, losing mummy and now Luke…I know He understands my anger and sadness.
I know we cannot change what has happened. I trust that God is in charge and while I may not understand why this has happened now, I will accept it…eventually.
John Green said, “A short life can be a good life.” I now understand this on a whole new level.
Luke has left us with a great legacy: our love for each other has only grown stronger, he has brought our family closer together, having him be part of our journey for the short time that we did, put things in perspective for us; we all know what is really important.
We will speak about Luke. We will tell our future children about him. We will continue to love him, because he was real and he will always be part of our family.
Red Circle Days
Red Circle Days
by Leah Vidal
by Leah Vidal
My rating* – 5
There are moments in our lives that are imprinted into our very soul. Moments that don’t require a photo album or memory book for us to revisit them time and time again. Some may bring to life the very feelings of sheer happiness they brought the day we experienced them. Others bring the heart wrenching sorrow we spend years trying to erase.
These are moments that don’t need a reminder or a red circle on a calendar date, our hearts wrapping around them much like the tiny box on a calendar, keeping them contained only to bring them to the surface each year. Red Circle Days is a collection of those moments that I will forever carry with me, thought-provoking moments and stories which have left an indelible imprint on my very soul. – Book Description courtesy Amazon
When Stephanie over at When Crazy Meets Exhaustion wrote her review on Red Circle Days I knew it was a book I wanted to read…and soon.
So said, so done. I downloaded it in a matter of days.
As promised, this book was a thought-provoking, quick read and I know I will be going back to some of my favourite chapters often. Leah shares with us, moments in time throughout her life, in a series of short essays. With themes like, Family, Love, Coming of Age, Friendship and Death of loved ones these essays are intensely personal, but are common to all of us. This was something I really loved about this book. The fact that through her stories, I could relate them to my own life and some of the experiences I have had along the way was awesome!
My favourite chapter was “All grown up”; Leah shared the moment she knew she had stepped through the gateway to adulthood. Her story hit close to home for me. My mom was dying of Ovarian Cancer and despite my cousin’s urging me to maybe consider a hospice, I knew where she would want to be when that time came and I was determined so fulfill that wish.
In “Counting blessings, counting sheep..” she shares how a moment of desperation resulted in a serendipitous discovery in the blessings department. It is a definite must read! And hey…the lady likes Walking Dead – gotta love her!
At the end of each chapter, she poses a question for the reader to consider. Thinking about those questions and coming up with answers was like a walk down memory lane and this made the book even more special to me. I definitely want my Book Club to read and discuss this gem of a book. I want everyone I know to read it. We all have our own red circle days and I thank Leah for this poignant reminder that it is good for the soul to remember and celebrate them. Always.
Leah blogs over at Little Miss Wordy go check her out!
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*my personal quality ratings are the scores I give books on a scale of 0-5 based on my personal opinion of a book. 0 is “birdcage liner” and 5 is “off-the-hook good”
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