Highlights!

Yesterday my friend and I were talking about the new year that is a few hours away now. She asked me what were my highlights from this year. I told her I would really have to think about that one. Hers was treatment for a medical condition

which made her life a lot easier and more healthier. I told her I knew that hers was going to be that. She had been suffering with this medical problem for years and finally she found a way to get it taken care of. I am very happy that she did. 

So, then I started to think about myself. Well, this year I didn't do anything so amazing like have a baby, get married, move to another state or country, climb a mountain, ski across country, break a world record or anything like that. I was thinking I had more low lights then highlights. After all, I have been through a lot with my mom with her getting sick and all the stuff that goes along with that. But, that highlight would be she is still here with me. She is slowly getting better the best she can. She won't be fully her old self again not with her onset of dementia but she is still here and I get to talk to her everyday, share with her things about how and what I am feeling, cook for her and take care of her when she needs me. I hope to have her here for a lot more years. Of course the low lights would be the medical bills but, that will all work itself out even if it takes the next 20 years to pay them. lol I am just feeling blessed that she is still with us.

Then I thought about my son. He didn't do anything so spectacular this year. He was just being a kid. He went from 9 years old to 10 years old and now has a 13 year old attitude. But, we still laugh together and he is not sick and I am so thankful for that. I have read about a lot of kids that were not so fortunate and are not with us today. I am glad mine is and thriving. A highlight for him this year was an unexpected one. Last week he got a Christmas card in the mail. That part was not so unexpected but the person who sent it was. It came from his paternal grandmother. She hasn't sent him a card since he has been born. She barely acknowledges his existence. He has got all of two gifts from her in ten years. One was a big wheel when he was 2 that his father never could figure out how to put together. The other was a musical toy that she got from the thrift store when he was first born. So, to get this card was a surprise and an ever bigger surprise was the fact she put $20 in it and wrote a personal note. I had to call and find out if she was okay and of course my son called to thank her too. 

Next I thought about all the things that I do have that lots of people don't and as long as I have the basics I am pretty good. I have food, a roof and clothes. And I thought about a time not so long ago, about 7 years ago when I didn't. I feel blessed just to wake up everyday in a bed, my own bed. And I feel blessed to have a kitchen. I missed having a kitchen. It sounds strange to miss a kitchen but I did and even missed cooking. 

And I thought about my health. I am lucky to be in good health. Not the best but I am improving that over time. But, at least I am not in a hospital fighting for my life. I feel blessed for that too.

So, I told my friend that my highlight of the year was surviving the year. All the ups and downs and in betweens. I am still here to see another year. 

Happy New Year!

Hope

A few days ago I was talking to my mom about her sister, my aunt. Back in the day my aunt and I were very close. She was also very close to my mom. I grew up with her kids, my cousins and for a long time they lived next door to us. Then things went bad about 8 or 9 years ago as things sometimes do in families. Things got complicated and people said and did things that shouldn't have been said or done and then silence began between two sisters who were so close for over 60 years. Unfortunately, the silence started right before my son's second birthday so he never really got to know his grand aunt at all. He has met her and she has held him as a baby but he doesn't remember her at all. In fact, he told me that he forgot that his grandma had a sister. He heard us talking and only then did he remember that she had one.

He asked me basic questions of what she looked like. I had a picture that I showed him and then the questions got harder. He asked what happened between her and grandma and how come they don't talk anymore or why she doesn't visit. I really didn't know what to tell him. I didn't really want to rehash the exact story. I thought it would be too much for him to understand. Heck, I don't even understand it sometimes. I didn't want to make the story so simple that it would just lead to more questions from his little inquiring mind that I know I wouldn't have the answers to. I pondered that question in my mind for a minute and then I told him that sometimes things happen in families and with friends that make a person angry so angry that they can't talk to the person for a while until they aren't angry anymore. That was the best I could come up with. I really didn't want to get into who did and said what. He would learn that when he is older. I am sure that someone will give him that blow by blow but until then I thought that he didn't need to know now. I hope that never happens but knowing this family I am sure that one day someone who knows will communicate the whole terrible story to him. 

Of course, he asked more questions and I changed the subject casually. I am not sure if that was the right thing to do but I did it nonetheless. I told him that maybe one day he will see his grand aunt again. I hope that someday he will and that someday his grandmother and her sister will talk again and all of what happened back then will be water under the bridge but in reality I know it probably will never happen but one can have HOPE. 

Family Pictures

Well, another holiday has come and gone. Thanksgiving was a small event with a lot of food at my house. I don't have a lot of family that I celebrate the holidays with anymore. Now, my family celebrations consist of 5-8 people depending on the holiday. Times have changed and we have with the times. I guess that it was time for a change like it or not. Holidays used to be a bigger celebration when my grandparents were alive. Two tables were necessary. We had one for the grown ups and one for the kids. Back then it was 5-6 kids and about the same number of grown ups. I loved the kid table even when I wasn't a "kid" anymore I still ate there with my cousins and my sister and brother. The grown up table had too much drama for us. We couldn't talk about kid stuff at the grown up table and we couldn't eat our food the way we wanted to without getting lectured on the right fork to eat the turkey with. Of course it was confusing with 50 forks on the table who knew at 10 years old which one to eat the salad with and the turkey with. All we knew was that a fork was a fork. But, my step grandfather he was very specific which fork was which and what to it with which. Hence, we stayed at the kid table with only one fork involved. At the grown up table they were always talking about boring things that we didn't want to hear, mostly how we had misbehaved over the month leading up to Thanksgiving. Us, kids on the other hand would talk about the fun we had misbehaving and how we tried not to get in trouble. 

The kids table was just far enough from the grown up table so we could talk in peace. Of course, we always thought we were talking quieter then we really were and the grown ups heard just about every word we said but we had fun anyway. Pie time was our favorite time. We all got to pick what kind of pie we wanted to eat and nobody ever picked that minced meat pie that my grandfather would always get and nobody would eat it but him. After the pie there was always some little treats to take home. 

Those were the days. I miss those days and wish sometimes that I could repeat them with my son. But, my grands are gone and so is the house that my grands used to live in. They wanted it, the house, to remain in the family, after they passed but as I found out after people die other people become vultures and mean and nasty and so the house unfortunately was utlimately I consider buried with them. In other words sold to someone else. So, this year and all the years since then the family, cousins, aunts, uncles haven't spoken to each other basically, the few that are left on my mom's side, and each have went different ways. We moved to a small apartment in a neighborhood that is so-so. My aunt kept her house in the small city she has lived in since her second child was born and she kept her rental property which my mom rented from her for over 30 years before she moved, my uncle moved into a senior housing complex, my sister got married and moved to an apartment with her husband, the cousins some live with their parents and a couple live on their own in the same city my aunt lives in. They all have their own holiday celebrations I would imagine. I see pictures posted on Facebook from time to time with them eating turkey or opening Christmas gifts. I see pictures of their kids and grands and it makes me a little sad. Sad, because this is what we have become as a family. 

I regret not taking pictures when we were all as one big happy family sitting around a table or tables happily talking and en\joying eachother's company. I loved taking pictures but back then didn't have a camera. Sometimes I would have an inexpensive camera, the old fashion back in the day kind, where you needed film and had to go and actually get the film developed. I was thinking about that over this past Thanksgiving when we were all stuffing our faces with turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes. Thinking about how I missed all the picture taking opportunities back in the day. I wished that we were a more picture taking family 30 years ago. I wished that we had captured all those happy moments of all the celebrations and picnics we had back then. I wished that all the pictures in my mind could be printed out and I could frame them and show them to my son. 

Of course, none of that is possible now. I have the memories that I share with him and even though we don't have the "traditional" family celebrations that we had back in the day I still want to take some pictures for him so he can tell his kids about back in the day and show them in pictures.