4urlovelife

I was asked to give thanks at a recent family reunion and I couldn’t think of anything better to give thanks for than my Mom:  I think I speak for each and every person in this room.We would like to give thanks to our mothers and fathers for all they have given us in life. I especially want to thank my Mother and Father for teaching us to do what is right in life, to love each other as a family above all else.  My parent’s especially have taught me not to let outside forces ever interfere with my family coming first.  As we have fought many battle in our lives we have overcome and it was through the love and respect that our parents had for each other and taught us to have for each other,. Teaching us not only by their words, but their examples.  I only hope I can be as good of an example to my kids as my parents have been to me.  I also hope that I can always live up to the expectations of my parents, and to do what is right above all else, and put my family first.

We are all gathered here because of the love of our parents and their parents, and so forth.  We share a common bond that is only known in families who love and respect each other above all else.

Many of us here have lost our parents, children, sisters, and brothers and would give anything in the world to have even one more moment with them to tell them how much we love them.  I am one who is lucky enough to still have my parents here.  I treasure every moment I can spend with them, Time is something you can never get back, so in our busy lives we need to take time everyday to tell the ones we love how much they mean to us and to give them, as they have given to us, the gift of our time, because at the end of the day all that matters is our family. 

Thank you all and above all I want to thank my Mother, I love her more than life itself, she has given unselfishly, she has put her family above all else and if ever there were an angel on earth it is my Mother.  I love you Mom. 

Life is so hard at times, your teen years of adolescence, your years of first loves, then off to college, leaving your Mom and Dad and other members of your family.  Out into the world at such a young age.  Then there you are parents yourselves eventually, and loving and raising you kids and realizing “Mom actually knew what she was talking about”. 

Then there are the empty nesters, whose kids have moved on with their lives you see them when you can, you have an empty feeling, and the house feels really strange without all the kids and their friends.  You get used to it and get a routine, and then the kids come back home for some reason, maybe stay a few months.  Yet I am glad they can always come home, that is how I want it to be. 

Many people say “Life begins after 40″.  I don’t know what the heck they are talking about.  Life is the hardest after 40 to me, reading glasses, kids leave home, trying to figure out what to do with your time that you never had before, and then there are the aging parents. 

I worry about my kids making the right decisions and going down the right path in life, and in the next thought I worry about the health of my parents, whether they will get senile, and I will have to deal with that in a gentle way.  Whether one passes away before the other and how the one left will deal with the loss.  I worry about them falling, or forgetting things that are important like something cooking on the stove and they catch something on fire.  I am the one left to care for them, as my sister and brother don’t live in the same town.  Yet I know I am glad I am here for them.  My Mother tells me every day that she doesn’t know what she would do without me.  I love her so very much; she is an angel on earth.

I worry, I worry, I worry, I guess that is what I do because I love so deeply.  I worry about my kid’s happiness and my parents aging.  

I guess that is “The Circle of Life“.

I guess I have actually been with him more than half of his life. 26 years of marriage, and he is 50. And they said it would never last. lol