A love story.................

Somewhere in time, there were two people who found themselves lost in yesterday’s dreams, still looking for tomorrow’s wishful falling star and ended up finding themselves right in the makings of a reality show called “Going thru life as a single parent,” that is where we, Joe and I met. Our common denominator, we were both alone and we both had children. We were different as night and day. He was shy, I was witting with laughter. He was fresh out of a marriage; I was tired of being alone. We met by “chance” but it was “fate” that brought us together and “faith” that kept us in love for more than 30 years.


Our love story started with a single red rose held in the hands of an out of placed man, who would be standing at my front door awaiting our first date. Afterwards came our first kiss and I was sixteen once again. We both were scared and didn’t want to get hurt, we had kids and for us, that was more love then we both could handle. Through we were “meant” to be parents, we were not meant to be alone. So as our courtship grew, we did too, allowing our children to go to the movies with us, allowing them to share in what was good, clean and a safe friendship for everyone involved. Our personal love was not part of the sharing, our children never saw us even lying across a bed talking much less anything else, no, we played old school, and the funny thing is, it worked. There were times when we all had a sleep over, the boys in one bed, the girls in the other and it stayed that way until we got married. So our children were allowed to be part of the magic, they saw smiles and hugs. They felt love all around them because they were part of the love story. We blessed our food and ate together we talked, we were building a family from the ground up the hard way. This was the beginning of the rest of my life, for it was bigger than just two hearts coming

Together as one, it had grown to six that is what makes our love story so special. In one year Joe did everything right, he bought me flowers, cards, said all the right things and our dates became family affairs. He loved my children, as I his, because he wanted too, because he didn't’ have too. The man had my heart from the beginning. More than that, he made my dreams come true. He made me a wife and mother of two sets of twins. For our reasons there was no other mommy or daddy, we were what was left, all we had was the makings of what “was once two separate families“. It wasn't’ the easiest way to make a new family but it made for one of the strongest families I know. On March 15th 1980 we were married in my parents’ house, our two, boy/ girl babies, only 9 months apart, had the chicken poxes but our oldest boy/ girl children, 20 days apart, stood by us as we wed. On that day we became a real family, no “Alice” but a bunch just the same. I had my dream, a loving husband, wonderful father and I became an adoring wife and mother. We all knew in that family of six, that love with thicker then blood. Married on a Saturday drove off for one night together and back again to be parents of a beautiful family that we was started. We melted together me and him, as if we were the chosen ones all along. Eventually our children were adopted and given proper names as we begin our true love story through time. In 1983 my son wrote an essay that won me recognition of mother of the year in the city where we lived. His tender story shared his devotion of what it meant to have the happiness and unlimited loving care of a mother; this was only three years into the marriage and before the adoption. I still saved his hand written words close to my heart and locked for safe keeping. In 1980 Joe and I felt it was best for our family of 6 if I could be home to raise our children, so I opened a home day care that lasted for more than 20+ years. Our home was the place all the kids wanted to stay, play and even live from time to time. We were the nexus, dad whistled and we all came running, even me. The father was and still is the head of something wonderful, am at his side. Something out of a Rockwell painting, a pure, real, safe and a loving home brought happiness to us and others who could see it and feel it. After 30 years, it’s still there. Joe and I raised our four children, never took a vacation without them. We kissed their booboo’s, walked away when they took off their training wheels and cried for them over broken hearts. After 30 plus years of being in love, we are still the nexus, the solid ground for them to come home to. Now they have their children and we are grandparents, they think it’s funny to see us kiss and hold hands. We have eight grandchildren and it all started because two people fell in love. We put our foot down and took the vacancy sign off the front door, it‘s our time alone. Now the sign reads grandchildren spoiled while you wait. They all know we have our Friday date night with pizza and popcorn sitting in front of a big screen T.V with surround sound…together just him and me but we have to laugh because after all this time, one of those kids will still call us right in the middle of movie forgetting we have that time to ourselves. That’s ok, we never tell them it’s the wrong time to call, after all what family is for?

I am written this essay as the love story for it is full of memories I will never forget. A box full of baby teeth I have no idea who’s. A drawer full of every love notes Joe wrote to me 30 years ago. That old glass ball with a rose inside, a gift after 13 weeks of dating sits in its place of honor. After 18 years of marriage we molded our hands together in plaster holding hands forever, it sits by our picture. But true love, real love shows when you’re getting older and one of you is sick and the other is up all night feeding you ice chips. Not as romantic as rose petals on bed of satin sheets, that lasts for only moment in time. After 30 years, it’s a lifetime in a moment. The night lasts longer for you inhale every breath to smell the roses, spent more time touching the face of the one you love as you are making a memory and reliving why you fell in love in the first place one kiss at a time forever. Like I said this is a love story of the rest of my life. I love you Joe.

The forgotten time

Viola...old 76....I know that is my great aunt...in the picture. That car must be an 1876.

Oh the forgotten years of little to eat, less to wear and faces no one can remember. The days of black and white, no T.V and homemade everything. If I did not have this picture who would remember what she looked like? My grandchildren would never believe without seeing just how the cars have changed along with people and that time period. So I save pictures like these to share with my grandchildren of the days that even I never knew.....the forgotten time when they was so little.

The consequences of three grandmothers

It is "time" that entraps us in her web, just like a spider waiting for it's meal. So very long ago these two different women unknowingly gave birth to a child that would grow up to be my own two parents. My two grandmothers, from both sides of my bloodline. I look into their eyes and wonder what it would have been like to know them. I had no grandmother I could call grandma. I never had cookies she would have baked, or the kisses and the hugs while she was spoiling me. Weathered by time...one of them died of an illness when my father was only seven years old...the other was distant by location and by heart. Though she lived to be older, she was not a wise woman. She was never alive,for I did not know her. When she passed away...the news was just that, I smelling yellows roses and could not even find a tear to give away. Because of these two women, I became the best grandma based on what I knew I did not have and always wanted. Therefore, I baked cookies and gave away kisses and hugs. I spent time with my grandchildren so they "will know who I am" and "who I was" when I am no longer around. When my photograph is placed in the web due to the entrapment of time, may I be remembered as a kind lady of wisdom. The consequences of three grandmothers before you: for I have eight grandchildren, the other one had none that she knew of, she died at 27, she never saw her babies grow up and she had twins. The other woman just did not care. As a golden ring goes round and round so does life it's self. We can choice to be just like the negative things in our lives or was can be different, breaking the circle. My children will love their grandchildren base on what they saw in me. My grandchildren will remember what a grandma I was and they will bake cookies for their grandchildren..the circle is broken and a new tradition replaces the negative yet the circle goes on. 

One life removed

Sometimes we learn what is required in life early, saving ourselves from a lot of grief. Those are the lucky ones, for the rest of us learn the hard way, taking our time forgetting that all life is only but a vapor, here on earth.




That is until someone you know walks into a hospital, due to some illness and never walks out. Everyone’s life can be change in one week or on day because of one life, forever removed from this earth. This is a personal article, I know it means nothing to anyone but me. I just had to take a step back and remember how dedicate our life spans are. What we don’t know is the age we will be when our number comes up, nor do we know, where our vessel of a body will be. I know is this, it is a agonizing feeling when you know that one life is gone and they never had the opportunity to be a Christian. Or maybe they just chose not to be, I can’t judge their heart. I only wish I could have been there maybe to whisper something inside their ear, the words that God would of giving me, to bring some inter peace to a dieing soul. Laugh as you may, if my spelling is wrong or that my words make no sense, it does not matter. Some people have developed a hardest in their character, always looking for the flaws in others to humor themselves. Life and death are both a commodity of being human. Don’t ask who died, if you don’t care about the feeling of who is informing you. Maybe they just needed to share. Laugh not, it could be you that misspelled a word, for none of us are perfect in what we do. Don’t judge the heart of another, for you will one day be judged. If you have ever had a paper plate on a cookout that displeased you for you could not put one more thing on it? It was wet, soft, messy or maybe small and plastic unable to be used in the microwave? Either scenario, your plate was full. Life can be much like that plate at a cookout, just too full and with one more item, it tips over and everything ends up on the floor of use to any one but the dog who is waiting for your mistake. Remember life is full of people with full plates even after the cookout is over. The laughter has stopped, everyone has gone home and your plate is still full.


Then, someone you know dies and you take a look at how dedicate our life spans are.

A house does not make a home the people do

Home is where the heart is, not an address. It has taken me almost
A lifetime to realize what the word "home" meant. For most
People, home is where you grew up as a child. For my family, it was very
Different, we traveled due to my father's employment. As far as I
Can remember, there are only a few buildings that I lived in as a
Child that I actually remember. Mostly it was a memory in the house,
Not the house it's self. There are only a few homes, I remember for
Various reasons, like counting 101 steps to the front door. That was
Hard work. I remember that house, because it was in that house, my
Mother brought home a baby sister for me eight years my junior.
There was another house, I distinctly remember because the doors had
Skeleton key locks. It was there I wanted a pony for my birthday, I
Was only seven. Of course, it was impossible to fulfill that dream of
A little girl but my father tried. He rented a pony for my birthday.
It was in that house I thought my father made coins fly through the
Air.  Sitting on the kitchen table there was a pink plastic
Sugar bowl. Daddy would say, close your eyes, then he would lift the
Lid, and inside there would be a nickel. Daddy was quite clever, he would yell
To my mother," remember that nickel in the bathroom"? "Did you see
it fly by you"? "Because here it is"! I just knew my daddy could do magic. I
still remember that little pink plastic sugar bowl. I also
had the measles in that house. In those days if you had the measles,
you were kept in the dark for weeks to protect your eyes. Daddy
boarded up all my bedroom windows. It was there, I remember
storybooks that were read to me. The bathroom had a skeleton key
lock, and one window. Somehow my mother had lost her little manicure
kit. Mama was raising a holler, she just knew we had it. Daddy
said," if I find that manicure kit in your apron pocket I'm going to
give you a spanking". I was seven, that was so funny to me, as I
knew he was poken’ fun with momma. So daddy chased her, and caught
her, though she ran. Sure enough, there inside her apron pocket was
that little red manicure kit.
I remember daddy holding mama as they both struggled to get her manicure kit
out of that apron pocket. They were laughing, he did say he was going to spank
her. They were laughing, all I remember, was my daddy ended up locked in the
bathroom and mama had the only skeleton key to open the door. In fun, daddy
would say "Sweetie, go get the key from your mama". She had the key in her
apron pocket. I could not get it. But I watched, as the two of them played.
Now mama was a little nervous about letting daddy out of the bathroom by this
time. So she went outside to get the garden hose then she put it through that
rear bathroom window. She turned on the water hose flooding the bathroom
with my father inside. He was soaked, everyone was laughing Mom was much younger
than, as she would never do that kind of thing today. Daddy, was soaking wet,
he was not laughing by now and was still trying to get me to get the
key to let him out. Oh how she patted that pocket like the evil stepmother in
Cinderella, when Cinderella was locked up, To this day I am not sure how my father
got out of that bathroom. But he did, and all was well.

Are we afraid of a possum...are we afraid of each other?

In many ways, people are like a possums. We can look mean, when we are afraid. We play dead, to get out of trouble. However, with the right love and training we can be friendly too. We all like to be petted and feel loved. We all will fight, when back into a corner. To some we are ugly and to others, well they can just see pass our faults and go right for our smiles. We can learn a lot from animals. They do not argue or analyze each other. They do not compare themselves with others or try to keep up with the Jones. They do not use words so they cannot be cruel or indifferent. They do not treat other possums as badly as people can treat other people, for from your mouth speaks the words of your heart. They nurture their young with an instinct for life. The part of that life shapes and changes the world from the inside out. Passion to save all kinds of life is giving birth to the right to “be”. To observe oneself in a mirror without shame for were once a seed. One possum cannot change the world but the world can change one possum. His name was Scooter; his mom was killer by a car, there on the side of the road with seven babies in her pouch. Found by someone who had heart, took them home for safekeeping but out of the seven, six found their way out of a cage leaving Scooter who was the smallest of them all. He grows as a pet, used a litter box, and sat on your lap. Loved to be petted and smiled with all the teeth. Never aggressive, hang on your finger upside down. There came a time when Scooter could no longer spend time in his caged bedroom, for he had outgrown it. It was not easy to let him go but he had to learn on his own and he had 65 acres of land to give it a shot. Moral of this story is not everything that seems mean is, not everything meant to die does. And sometimes the smallest efforts for what man think is the less of these can be one of God greatest creations, from the inside out.

I await my time with the eagerness of a child. The doors of opportunity has opened for me. How could I see I was being calling for just great casting, out of thousands of people who know the ropes so much better then myself why would He call my name?. But God know the play and he has read the book. He know who will fill the parts as he places them, He is a fine director is He the best. I will wait for His direction, I have a lead part. I will be all I can be and do the best I can . LIFE GOD”S WAY what a Catchy title.