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Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Wedding!!



My daughter was married in May...to a wonderful young man.....




It was the most beautiful day, ever....our weather can be very tricky in May.  Maybe 110, or horribly windy...but not this day....it was perfect.  


My beautiful Daughters
My children with the bride and groom
Her Brothers


Of Course there are bridesmaids!!

Joy!! 



Their adorable little nieces



Time for the reception!!


It was such a happy day...

childhood friends who came a long, long way to celebrate with her



First Dance

And then everyone danced!!
Father, daughter dance to "That's Amore!" 






Thank goodness for my sister-in-law and niece, they taught us how to make the Cannolis!!

It did become too much for some




The reception started at 6:30 but it didn't get dark until almost 8

Just so happy...

The sparklers for the send off...a fireworks show and the DJ played "New York New York" since that is where they are living now.  

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Happy Father's Day Daddy

Every little girl loves her daddy, it's a time before relationships get complicated.  I remember when my relationship with my father wasn't complicated. It's odd that my memories are so clear from about  the time I am 3 to 6 years old.  If they weren't my memories I might doubt their authenticity, but it was a stormy time for a little kid and the scenes of my parents arguing, check that, screaming at airport level decibels is indelibly entrenched in my little girl brain.  When they finally had enough of it all my mother woke me up late one night and said we were leaving.  Everything was packed and we got in her pink cadillac to stay with my grandmother.  I didn't know at the time that she didn't even leave a note, we just drove off into the dark Texas night without telling anyone where we were going. What torture that must have been for my dad, and confusion for me, after all I woke up in Louisiana.  I remember bits and pieces of that time, but not once do I remember talking with my dad, my mother had cut him off completely.  Later in life someone told me she called to say I was in the hospital with pneumonia and then hung up.  What a mess they were.  I don't know exactly how long we stayed there, but after awhile we got back in the pink cadillac and drove all the way to Alaska.  My Aunt Pee Wee (yes that is her name) had a health club there and my mother was going to work for her.  Of course.

I went from Texas to Louisiana to Fairbanks Alaska......Only Astronauts have similar experiences.

My mothers alcoholism escalated in Alaska, those memories of her are very clear.  When it all became too much for her, she contacted my father and told him she couldn't take care of me any more.  I didn't know this at the time but they came to a business arrangement.  He would pay her twenty thousand dollars for full custody so he sold everything he could and I said good bye to Alaska.

I remember that day very well.  I wore a pink dress and had 2 stuffed animals that were both rabbits (?).  We went for BBQ right before I got on the plane which I promptly spilled all over my pink dress....can you imagine my mother's frustration?  Not a great farewell moment.  Then at the airport, walking up the stairs to get on the plane I turned around to look at my mother one more time.  That memory still brings tears to my eyes.  What must it have been like for her? My first plane ride ever was that day, from Fairbanks Alaska to Seattle Washington where my father was going to meet me.  Since I was traveling alone, and I was 6, there was a woman sent to watch over me.  She didn't say much, but she had this look of pity on her face...funny what I remember.

 When they opened the doors of the plane after we landed in Seattle I could see my dad waiting a little way off, kneeling down with his arms outstretched. It was a  tumultousness time that would soon get even more complicated since my father had remarried, but for that moment....everything was right with the world.  I felt joy....unmitigated joy.  There was my dad!!

Someday I am going to commission an artist to draw this memory I have of him waiting for me.   I wrote in a fathers day card years ago of this memory and told him how much I loved him for it. Since this was all pre-Oprah and no one was aware we needed to face our feelings, he was very uncomfortable and wouldn't discuss it at all.  In his defense it must have been a horrible time for him.

I take this memory out every once in a while and lay it over my life like a transparency.  I let it cover up all the mistakes everyone made, all the hurt and pain. I let this memory of sacrifice and love be the focal point of my childhood. I don't do that enough, so I am doing it today.

Happy Father's Day Daddy, I love you.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Evil must not be allowed to win.

Once again evil appears in the form of a serial killer bent on the destruction of innocent people.  It is never easy to hear about murders, but for them to be in Church, it is cruelest of all.  We want to have a safe place, or think there is a safe place.  But evil appears to be taking all our safe places away.

I am left with a helpless feeling, with no explanation and no sense to be made of it.

10 lives are destroyed.....the shooter being one of them.  And then the trickle down effect of hundreds of people connected to these 10 whose lives will be forever altered.  It all happens in a few short minutes.  The time it takes to get a hamburger or watch a commercial, the amount of time you sit at a red light.....10 lives destroyed.

How does it happen?  Evil makes people blind, they can no longer see right from wrong, under that circumstance this can happen.  Where does evil come from?  It usually comes in small doses from many sources.  Rarely does anyone get up in the morning and say they want to kill someone.  Evil is patient....it whispers, provides articles on hate with the internet providing an amazing avenue, perhaps the influence of friends or maybe organic madness.

I heard discussion on whether or not this was a hate crime.  Murder is a hate crime and every victim should be treated accordingly.  "Hate crime" seems like an oxymoron.  A dear friend went to visit her mother and found her dying in the garage, stabbed by her boyfriend.  How would that not be a hate crime?

I grew up in the South with every Wednesday night being a church night.  Today, this Thursday morning when I heard of this horrific slaughter my thought was a remembrance of Wednesday night church.  And then a spontaneous shudder went over my body.

I don't have enough prayers for the families and friends of these 9 innocent people.  I believe over time they will heal because of the faith they have.  My prayers are also with the family of the shooter who must live with this for the rest of their lives.

But we must not let evil win. There is a tremendous amount of good in this world, I just got a message on Facebook from friends who are serving a mission in Kenya.  They are doing incredible good at a hospital filled with children suffering with leukemia to gunshot wounds to sickle cell to horrible burns.  Cindy and Rod are there loving those children.

There is so much good in the world.  I refuse to let evil win.  Don't you let it either.