Life is a Process to be Lived

Goodness sakes!  It is so beautiful outside today I can hardly stand it.  Michael, our grandsons, and I are attending a Roughriders Baseball game this afternoon compliments of CVS Caremark.  We're all looking forward to it!!  Yesterday, we got up early and attended Zachary's and Nicholas's T-ball and baseball games.  It was 60 degrees with a North wind blowing.  Brrrrr!

I was talking with my daughter yesterday.  (We have made a point to touch bases almost daily if only for a few minutes.  The gift that keeps on giving!!)  A time I cherish, by the way.  We like to talk about our country, our work, our lives, the Lord, and whatever comes to mind.  I am probably a bit more conservative but that may be because of the era I was raised in.  I think each new generation thinks of the former as a bit old fashioned!  As a mom of young children, I leaned towards giving them Christian values, encouraging their independence, speaking out, asking questions, and learning about life and everything it entails.  I wanted to make sure that they had healthy foundations and felt free to make mistakes and learn from them.  My son and daughter are both forward thinking people with good morals and  hearts.  I like that!!  They follow in my footsteps with the basics and teach me some new ideas about life and children.


After one of my chats with Jane, I gravitated towards my email account and was surprised to receive a message from one of my granddaughter's friends.  It took me back a bit because I didn't know her ... it took a little back tracking to unwind the chain of events.  She had posted a message and my granddaughter had punched the "like" button therefore it showed up on my page.  After reading the posting, I put my two cents worth in about her posting of you're not good for me and I'm not good for you so I will love you like there's no tomorrow (kinda like that).  I posted a comment about the tomorrow consequences and I guess I hit a nerve because she thanked me for my wisdom.  I really love my teenaged granddaughter and have a heart for the teenagers of today.  They are barraged from every direction with sex, live for the moment, and if it feels good do it!!!  They dress like adults at age 5 and flirt without knowing the ramifications of their behavior.

It got me to thinking about my own childhood and why I am the way I am today.  First of all, I was a little bitty baby born in a little bitty hospital in a little bitty town.  (Sounds like a song??)  My surroundings were that of a cocoon ... at least until I could walk and manage to make my way around the town.  Everyone in town knew each other and if a stranger were to appear, everyone knew that as well.  The phone at my parents' home rang frequently, "Your little one has been here and left her purse ... she was headed west probably to her grandmothers."  My mother would phone my grandmother or head out to pick me up at some other location.

When I started school, I learned about the world of reading.  My mother had a librarian friend, Margaret Grove, who gave me books and I loved her gifts.  I still have Sinbad the Sailor!  I would head for the local library and take out books, devour them then return for more.  Learning was a privilege and I feasted on information.

Having been raised on a lake, the beauty of nature was all around me.  My family had cottages on the lake shore and although I never was a master swimmer, I enjoyed playing in the water and building sandcastles.  Around ten, I would take my pile of books and head for the beach.  I was never alone ... my friends, the characters of the stories being read, were my constant companions.  One of my favorite books was given to me by a dear friend the summer I graduated from high school.  Gift By the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  I think he saw something in me that I didn't and I will be forever grateful for his guidance.


I began kindergarten and immediately loved school.  The only problem I had was with my coordination ... I was not very good at sports and was last to be picked on teams.  I think my feelings of inadequacy affected my coordination and my nervousness gave way to a poor showing.  Thank goodness, my children did not inherit my clumsiness and do excel in sports and being active.  School years were years of joy ... loving teachers, long friendships, dances, proms, roller skating, football games, wrestling matches, sleep overs, dating, singing...  I could go on and on.  Life was rather simple but full of many good things and people...

Life consisted of family events ... birthdays, Mother's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Father's Day, 4th of July, picnics, parades, concerts in the park, church ... later Brownie/Girl Scouts, choir, band, church, and time with friends events were added.  My life was busy and full of good influences, friends and family.


Like the teenagers of today, fashion was important but in a different way.  My mother always made sure that I had a Sunday best dress and shoes and enough school and play clothes to last a week.  My grandmother was a seamstress and made gathered skirts for me to wear.  I never thought they were stupid and was happy to pick out the material.  In school, I learned to sew (on a Singer treadle machine!) and started making my own dresses.  Oh gosh, some of them were so awful.  Good thing material was inexpensive!  I had cousins who were older than me and was so glad to get hand me downs.  Proms or special dances meant a new dress but makeup/hair/nails were done at home.  The closets in my home were quite small so what I had seemed like a lot.  I don't remember being jealous of what someone else wore or that they were more fashionable.  I started marching to the tune of my own drum early in life!!


Getting my driver's license was a big deal.  I was really sweating the parallel parking and gave a sigh of relief when I passed first go around.  My parents didn't feel that it was necessary for me to drive (period) so it was a treat when I would get the family car ... put twenty five cents worth of gas in it and drive up and down main street a few times.  Their theory was that I could walk wherever I needed to go and exercise was good for me.  Oh, the advantages of living in small town America!  My friend, Elaine, did have an old car and we would gather some friends and jump in for a tour of towns close by.  Since my curfew was 10:00PM, there wasn't much we could do to get into trouble.


I was thirteen when I had my first date.  I was really nervous.  We double dated with Robert's brother and girlfriend and went to a movie.  Golly ... here I was still playing with dolls and out on a date.  I laugh about that now.  I got my first kiss, a peck on the cheek and thought at that time that kissing was pretty overrated.  My parents allowed me to have a boy/girl party for my thirteenth birthday ... I fixed up the basement and hooked up my record player.  We danced around the furnace, had snacks and by 9:00PM, my guests were all gone.  I remember sitting downstairs for a long time thinking that I had arrived in the social world.


Today, I know that some of my friends from high school are reading my blogs.  I cherish the friendships I made from kindergarten to twelfth grade and hold them dear to my heart.  I am hoping that I will be able to attend our next reunion and celebrate with them.


In all the craziness of my childhood there was some stability that gave me strength and knowledge that life could be good ... that I was ok.  In my own world of humble beginnings, I harvested good memories and held on to them when life got out of sorts.  I am grateful that the good Lord placed me where He did when He did.  I learned to read, to have empathy for others, to do for myself and be independent ... I learned the value of family which included a sphere of many different souls.  I learned to overcome and cherish the good in people.  Even though much of my childhood remains a blank when it comes to interaction with my mother, father, and brother, more is coming to the surface and yea (!) I am handling it just fine.


I would say that I had a pretty good foundation in the first seventeen years of my life.  Yes, there were some hiccoughs and the tapes running in my brain got a little messed up but all in all, I can say that what man meant for evil, God meant for good and I will hang on to that until the day I die.


Our teenagers now need our love, our guidance and our voices.  If you don't like what they are doing, speak up for what is right.  They might not absorb it at the moment but at some point they will.  There are times when all of a sudden I remember something someone said to me ... I sometimes say to myself, "Oh, if only I would have listened..."  Then, I erase that thought and add, "I may not have listened then, but I am listening now!"


I hope and pray that you will grab the teenagers in your life and give them a big hug.  They need it ... they need us to stand up for what is true, what is good, and what is of God.  Plant those mustard seeds and water them.  If you stand by and say nothing out of fear, you are condoning out of control lifestyles and your message is loud and clear.  Inaction and not saying anything speaks loudly.


There are plenty of people who will tell you what you want to hear ... but, on the inside we know what is true, don't we?  Carpe' Diem!!

Always remember, you are loved and prayed for ... YA YOU!

P.S.  I couldn't get the "little bitty" out of my mind ... here you go ... enjoy your day!!!