WPC: Focus: Never Grow Old

Tags

children, family, Photo Challenge, photography, Weekly Photo Challenge

There’s something magical about bubbles, something fairy-like about their delicate iridescence and their fragile form. Their moment in time whispering childlike wonderment and happy memories as they float away.

This week’s challenge was about focus, and anyone who has made soap bubbles knows that it takes focus and patience, and often multiple attempts to form these airy spheres. Little Guy was my assistant on this particular sunny day, as I attempted over and over to capture these bubbles in time. Instead, my camera shifted the focus from the bubble to my boy, and I captured a even better moment in time! Just like this bubble, this precious child is growing up and the little boy I adore is floating away. I marvel at who he is becoming and like a bubble, I have to set him free so that he may attain his full beauty. And as he grows older, I pray his spirit never grows old.

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. – Franz Kafka

To see more photos, in-focus or out-of-focus, click here.

Happy Father’s Day

Tags

Dad, family, Father's Day, fathers and daughters, humour

As usual, I’m running behind posting. The idea is there (or sometimes it’s not) and I’ve written and re-written it in my head, usually in the middle of the night when I’m too lazy tired to get out of bed and look for a pencil and paper.  That, and risk exciting our guinea pig who thinks breakfast starts the moment someone stirs after a long period of silence. But I digress…

Yeah, he would look good in this! (@Pixabay)

It seems everyone, with “Daddy’s day” just around the corner, is talking about great gifts for Dad. I’m sure my Dad wouldn’t object to a new car or an Alaskan cruise, but he has me for a daughter, and I just don’t have that kind of cash. Unless the car is a Hot Wheels®.

But no, my Dad endured the annual celebration complete with lots of hugs and the usual round of crappy gifts – smeared artwork, tie cards, and jars of peanuts. One year I knit him a pair of slippers. There are only 7 shades in the rainbow…my slippers boasted 13! First, my Dad never wore slippers. Second, I didn’t have an allowance. Third, I was 11 and I didn’t know how to knit. He kept them in his dresser drawer (probably because  Mom told him he wasn’t allowed to throw them out)! They may still be there. He listens to my Mom!

Another year, I made him a jar of pickled bums! I couldn’t find the photo but it looked like this (only my “bums” were also various colours of the rainbow). I was a creative child!

I told him to throw those out last year.

One year he even got his own blog post. You should read it – I worked really hard on it and you’ll see just why he deserves so much better!

My Dad is a great guy…quiet, unassuming and patient. SO very patient! The rest of the year he put up with my fairy-princess-drama-queen-girly-girl behaviour. He even let me practice “walking down the aisle” when we walked home from figure skating practice (I think he hated every moment of it), but the practice paid off!

This year, I baked him brownies. There were from a mix. And he had to share them with the rest of the family. But in my defence, I still don’t have an allowance and it’s the thought that counts. Right?

Love you Dad!

WPC: Heritage

Tags

cemetery, family, Photo Challenge, photography, Weekly Photo Challenge

Three generations are buried in the cemetery near the former farmhouse. My great-great grandmother walked to the family woods nearby, dug up and replanted an evergreen tree at the family plot. That tree is gone now but the pallbearers had to step carefully when we buried my grandmother in 2014.  I can still picture it from the road, tall and lean, against the sky.

Out of curiousity last night, I searched the name of my great-great-great-grandparents and I found an interesting thread. Though some of the information differed (the date they left Ireland and one surname), there were some similarities (town in Ireland, 10 children – one dying at sea, and the date of their deaths (3 weeks apart)! I’m excited to dig deeper.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. – Marcus Garvey

To see more photos, click here.

To My Sons

Tags

adventure, advice, blessing, children, family, humour, laugh, parent

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” –Elizabeth Stone

Someday you will understand. Someday, you will, I hope, be a parent too, and you will understand how much your children shape and reshape you. You will experience the pain and the joy that comes from giving your heart away. You will examine your character, your relationships, and your decisions through new eyes. You will see life through the eyes of a child, and your soul will thrill to see beauty and innocence again. It is an indescribable adventure and a lifelong journey. I am privileged to share it with you.

I wanted to be a “good” and “fun” and “perfect” Mom…the kind who baked cookies and milk, who never lost her temper, who always took time to listen. I wanted to roll out of bed in the morning with a song on my lips. I wanted to be the one to wipe away your tears, and chase away your fears. To be your greatest cheerleader. To never miss celebrating a special moment. I wanted to be Mrs. Cleaver…able to gracefully solve any problem in half an hour or less. I wanted to be a “good” and “perfect” Mom…

Instead, you got a real Mom…I baked cookies (that were often burned or funny looking) and bandaged boo-boos. I tried to pay attention and never turn you away, even in the middle of the night. But I know I didn’t always do it gracefully. I didn’t always keep my temper, or put my “listening ears” on. I failed in many ways, and you will too. Humble yourself before your children when you need to – they love you any way. Treat each day as a new beginning.

Sing loudly even when you don’t know the words…make up your own. It doesn’t matter if they’re super silly or they don’t rhyme. Words like “poop” will always get a laugh. Pick dandelions. Blow bubbles. Make faces. Play. (actually that’s good advice even when you don’t have kids…)

I hope that I have given you some happy memories – things like snuggling on the couch, rescuing worms on rainy days, arts & crafts, and bedtime stories. Savour these little moments – you are giving the gift of time. Children never remember the “big” moments, the ones that adults think are important. Plan “big” moments any way!

Pray without ceasing. It is the only way that you will begin to have the strength, patience, and wisdom you will need for each day, from diapers to driving lessons, and everything in between and beyond. It is one of the most important things you can do for them, and for you!

There are many memories that I treasure in my heart. To Big Guy: “I love you forever, I like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be”. To Little Guy: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray…” You guys are the biggest part of my “story” – some day I’ll tell you more.    Love ya’

Mom xoxo

O is for Oaks – Vimy Oaks

Tags

#atozchallenge, Canada, family, history, remembrance

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every Canadian child will be taught about the battle of Vimy Ridge, which history marks as an iconic milestone in shaping Canada’s national identity. I think it’s important for our kids to know the parts their country played in those two world conflicts, and the costs. I have shared my family’s story with my kids because I want them to understand the personal cost. After the war, our world had to learn to reconcile our differences and strive to build a better world for the next generation.

This weekend, my aunt share a story that has been a 100 years in the making!

In 1917, following the battle of Vimy Ridge, Lt. Miller went for a walk on the battlefield, and gathered a handful of acorns. The regal oak trees he had written about seeing all over France, were destroyed. He sent those acorns to his family in Canada and asked that they be planted. Two years later, he returned home, married his sweetheart and started his farm, Vimy Oaks. The small acorns were starting too.

Tall  oaks from little acorns grow. – Proverb

In 1950, a random veteran saw the farm’s sign and decided to make inquiries. The two veterans of Vimy became fast friends, often working together on Miller’s farm. Miller, not having children of his own, enjoyed the company of the veteran and his boys. After the farm was sold in the 1960’s, one of the boys, Monty, continued to visit the Millers. Lt. Miller passed away in 1979 at the age of 90.

In 2004, Monty took his wife to Europe to retrace his father’s war experiences and visit the Vimy Memorial. He was struck by the bare landscape, and he started to think about the Oaks at the Farm.

Ideas are acorns. They’re only powerful because that acorn becomes an oak tree. – Bob Clemans

By 2014, the oaks were 10 metres high. With the help of the Vimy Foundation and a local nursery, shoots from the acorns were grafted onto root stock from British Columbian oaks. But the process to certify them for transportation to France was too complex.

In the Summer of 2016, Monty and his grandchildren gathered acorns from the Vimy Oak grove. They were taken to a nursery in France, where they were germinated and continue to grow. Meanwhile, with the help of donations, a small parcel of land has been purchased near the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, and once it has been de-mined in 2018, the tiny oaks will be planted. Beauty after the battle.

May our children, like these acorns, grow tall and strong and steadfast,
and may they always know peace.

 

N is for My Nana’s Hands

Tags

#atozchallenge, family, poetry

So still. Resting gently on the starched, white bed sheets. Her hands, almost blue, the skin paper thin and translucent, barely stretched across bone and ligament. Her hands, finger tips once nicked by sewing needles deftly weaving stitches in colourful patchwork wonders to swathe a newborn or shroud an invalid. Her hands, once calloused, fingernails caked with mud, tending vegetables in a patchwork of soil, or coated with sugar and flour and butter, a patchwork of dishes served to family and neighbours. Her hands, red and chapped from washing soiled bedding and soothing fevered brows, gently caring for aging relatives and growing children. Her hands, scarred but strong, competently filling heavy responsibilities on a farm, in a home. Her hands, young and supple, stroking the hands of her beautiful babies, marvelling at their size, reaching to caress the hand of the man she loves. Her hands, small and smooth reaching to move the checker across the game board, reaching for her doll in the night. Her hands, so small, fingernails like little pearls, resting gently on the starched, white bed sheets. So still.

***

H is for Hineni

Tags

#atozchallenge, faith, family

I’ll be honest. I struggled with “H”. So many “H” words come to mind, and this time of year, heartbreak & hope are knit tightly together for me. I can’t begin to share my grief, not yet, not now. But another “H” word has surfaced recently, and I want to watch for where it might surface in my own life, either as a gift to me or a gift I can give.

Hineni.  It’s a powerful Hebrew word that means “Here I am”. It is an offer of total availability. It is a call to unconditional devotion and a willingness to sacrifice.

To a broken soul, to a frightened child, to an insecure wife it can mean:

I am present. I am listening. I am going to take care of you. I am going to comfort you. I am going to stay. I am going to walk with you through this.

Months ago I read a story about a photo a husband took of his wife, sleeping next to her daughter in the crib. The wife later explained the promise she had made to her little girl.

Just before their daughter was born, this Mom heard a missionary speak about an orphanage he visited in Africa. In its nursery, were 100 cribs with 100 babies, but there were no sounds. No gurgles or coos. No crying. Just silence.  When he asked the host why it was so quiet, she explained that “after about a week of them being here, and crying out for countless hours, they eventually stop when they realize no one is coming for them”.

This breaks my heart.

I believe, at the heart of every person, is a deep need to have someone in their life who will say Hineni – Here I am!

Little Guy once asked me “How much do you love me?” and I answered him. I didn’t know at the time that I could have summed up my whole explanation in one word: Hineni – Here I am. Here I will always be. I am present. I am listening. I will comfort you. I will guide you. I will walk with you. I offer you my unconditional love and I am willing to sacrifice everything for you.

It’s how a parent should respond to their child. It’s how spouses should respond to one another. It’s how friends should respond too. I pray I have responded this way to my family and friends, thousands of times. And I pray that it will be thousands more.

 

 

 

 

F is for…

Tags

#atozchallenge, family, humour

From ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us! – Old Scottish poem

Summer 1989. It was almost too hot to sleep, but the ceiling fan was one saving grace.

Something woke me, and I found myself trying to blink the sleep from my mind to determine if the cartoon scene before me was fact or fiction. The room was dimly lit by the streetlights peeking around the blinds. In addition to the constant whirring of the ceiling fan overhead, there was an unusual flapping sound, then a rhythmic thump, before the flapping resumed. Overhead, the fan continued to spin but there was also a black, round stringy blur that swirled around the edges of the blades.  Every 4 seconds it would veer off in another direction, smack against the wall, start to slide down, then resume it’s swirling orbit the ceiling fan again. It’s so – wait! What?!?! There’s a black flapping tumbleweed rolling around my ceiling fan, smacking into the wall and sliding down…?

Bat!!!

Evidently the ceiling fan had totally destroyed the bat’s echolocation senses.  I screamed, a long, blood-curdling scream. Then I rolled out of bed (an old bed that was a good 2′ from the floor) with a thunk and crawled to the door. The black tumbleweed continued it’s nauseating swish and thump overhead. I cautionsly reached up to open the door, and crawled out. Slamming the door behind me. I proceeded to crawl into my parents’ room across the hall.

Dad sighed heavily as I sobbed my tale, and set off to catch the cuprit. A long battled ensued. Things crashed noisily around the room; Dad muttered and hissed. It was a long time before he emerged from behind the closed door of my bedroom, holding a squirming pillowcase. The tumblewood was gently set free.

I spent the next 2 weeks camping out in my parent’s bedroom floor. It was over a year before I stopped obsessively checking behind the blinds before I went to sleep…but it was only days after I returned to my room that I was savagely attacked in the bathroom, but that’s another story.

To this day, I can’t sleep in a room with a running ceiling fan. I wake up kicking and screaming, thinking it’s falling on me…or “something” is falling on me. Can you blame me?

 

D is for…Diapers & Driving Lessons

Tags

children, family, humour, parenting

Diapers and Driving Lessons…at the same time. That had certainly not been “the plan”. The “plan” had been university and law school. The “plan” had been a career, a husband, and a little house with a white picket fence before kids. I was a “good girl”, a straight-A student, a high-achiever…and I was going places. But at the end of Grade 10 at barely 16, I found out I was pregnant. The “plan” was shot to pieces.

So I weighed my options, developed a new “plan”, and started a great adventure instead. Instead of university, I did 2 college degrees, so I could get a job to support us. My parents were a wonderful support and we were happy together, but I didn’t want to live with them forever. Hubby entered the picture when Big Guy was 4; we were married when he was 6, and we adopted him (just in case there’s any question, Big Guy is mine x2). The house came later…a semi-detached “retro” look with a car port and a persistent problem with the plumbing. No picket fence.

Fast-forward 10 years when we were ready to expand our family. Where Big Guy was an astonishingly fast surprise, Little Guy was an incredibly long wait, one I despaired that would go on forever. And so…Diapers and Driving lessons. I’d slap a clean diaper on Little Guy, strap him in the car seat in the back, and we’d take Big Guy driving (secretly, I sometimes wished I had a clean diaper on too)!

Big Guy was the same age I was when he was born – 16! But there are advantages to a 16 year difference between siblings:

1. Instant Babysitter/Assistant: We never took advantage of him, but sometimes we needed that extra pair of hands. Like the one time I was crying louder than the crying baby and I handed him off to Big Guy, and stepped outside to sob for awhile. Or the time we had to tackle a Defcon5 poopy diaper…or simply to savour a rare moment in the bathroom…alone!
2. Effective Birth Control: At no age does any child want to imagine what their parents were doing behind closed doors, and here was the fruit of our activity. (I may never be a grandmother as a result)!
3. Greater Respect for Mom: It may have only been a brief pause, but it did give him pause when I reminded him that “I was your age when you were born…and you didn’t sleep through the night until you were 2, and I was still in school”!
4. Increase sociability: Big Guy had to get out of the house to avoid the screaming and crying. Sometimes it was the baby; I tried to keep it down!
5. No fighting over toys, friends, or who looked at who first.
6. Teaching responsible driving: Not only did he have me in the car watching his every move (and wearing a hole in the passenger floor where there should have been a brake pedal), but he had this precious baby staring at him in the rearview mirror.
7. We were mistaken for a couple: Big Guy wasn’t impressed, but if someone wants to assume I’m in my 20s, glory be!
8. Daddy-training without the responsibility: Big Guy can diaper without getting peed on, bathe without wearing all the bubbles, dress a toddler on the run, and almost reason with a screaming child. He knows how to read stories and cuddle a sleepy child. He also knows how many adults it takes to clean up a child with explosive poop (the answer is 3)! But he never had to worry about fevers at 3 a.m., fixing lunch, or the endless pile of dirty laundry.
9. Toys & Technology: Big Guy is great at unscrewing nano-screws to change batteries and getting us through the tough levels in video games. He has also perfected the art of dismantling toys screwed, taped or tied into stiff cardboard boxes with plastic twist ties so tightly that anything short of an apocalyptic explosion would set the toy free.
10. Role-model: Even though he was old enough to mete out discipline, we encouraged Big Guy to just be the “cool big brother”! Of course, I never mind when he tells Little Guy “don’t talk back to your mother” (wink, wink)

Since Little Guy first came home from the hospital, Big Guy has been right there! I love watching my boys playing together. Big Guy is 27 and has been out on his own for a few years in another city. Thankfully he visits often. And once in awhile, Little Guy & I visit him for a “sleep over” at his place. It’s like camping…in a very scary jungle.

The “plan” in high school was a good plan. The adventure has been better, even if it involved Diapers and Driving Lessons!

B is for…

Tags

#atozchallenge, family, humour

Sometimes I really wish I could draw because sometimes…a picture really is worth a 1,000 words. I can’t begin to draw the image of my mother in her pink nightslip, knees bent and eyes raised, perfectly framed in the doorway and poised with the broom to defend her family (the same broom she used to kill the smoke detector).

We lived in a red brick Victorian house on the top of Piety Hill. It was 3 stories tall, including the basement, and in 1992, I lived in a very small “apartment” in my parents’ basement. We also had an attic with some uninvited guests.

B is for Bats.

I’ve had more than my fair share of encounters with bats in the house.  Usually at night. Often when Dad was working night shifts at the fire hall.  Just like one Friday night in the Spring of 1993.

Dad was working the night shift, so Mom & I planned a PJ party at “my place”. After I put my son to bed, we built a roaring fire in the woodstove, popped popcorn and watched a chick flick. Just after 11 p.m. (because my Dad always called mom to say good-night)m we crawled under the covers (of my fold-out couch) and flipped off the light.

30 seconds later I heard the tell-tale, familiar, incredibly distincitve “flapping” sound overhead. I screamed and pulled the covers over my head.

“What’s wrong?” Mom angrily whispered.

“There’s a bat in the room. Listen!” I whispered back (because whispering made perfect sense at the time). It flapped over us again. Mom squealed and dove under the covers with me. The cat knocked something over and thundered across the room.

We huddled under the blankets for several minutes, listening in the darkness. All I could think about was how we were going to survive under the covers all night (what if I had to pee?) All Mom could think about was how to escape.

After more whispering, and fearing the cat would catch it and bring it to us, Mom decided to make a break for it. We counted to 3; she bravely dashed from the bed, up the 3 stairs to her left and out the door, slamming it behind her. All the while she was making a high-pitched, choked squeal.

“Is it still in there?” she asked, her voice muffled behind the door. I lay still in the dark, straining to hear. Something flapped by and the cat growled.

“I’m going to flip the light on and you look around.”

I slowly pulled the covers down to the bridge of my nose, blinking in the brightness. I had just spotted it hanging on the light over the table, next to the stairs – just as Mom peeked around the door. I pointed and whispered where it was.

“Stay there and watch it,” she said as she closed the door and went upstairs. Where did she think she was going? So I stayed and I stared, unblinking at this foreign creature. I’m pretty sure it was staring back.

She returned a few minutes later, and stood poised on the threshold in her nightgown, broom in hand, ready to defend her family.

“Go get Big Guy. If it moves, I’ll whack it”!

I slid from my bed and slithered across the floor to Big Guy’s room, my eyes riveted on the bat. I scooped my child into my arms, and slithered through the room and past my mother. I carried him up the stairs and tucked him into my old bed on the top floor. But Mom didn’t join me. So I went back down to see where Mom went. Maybe it ate her?

She was still standing by the closed, basement door, still armed with the broom. Something crashed on the other side.

“Now,” she said, “I’ve got you covered. Go get the cat!”