I’m over here today talking about texting and driving. You don’t do you?
Trying to Lighten Things Up a Bit Today:)
I have a few articles up on OMC which is another site I write for.
Hola! It’s porch season & I’m writing about THAT &sharing photos of my own porch here
Getting Dirty in the Garden! A Review & Giveaway here
A lot To Say
Sister & Brother
I have a lot to say right now. It’s just not ready to come out. I’m thinking and writing but until I get it out the way I want to, I will be consumed by it.
I know that some of my fellow writers get that-being consumed by a character or a scene or new story idea. For me this is non-fiction and I want to tell a story that is truthful-my truth- and not worry so much about others.
Censoring writing makes it contrived-my opinion.
This story is mine and I will tell it.
Will you tell yours?
Brother to Sister – A Poem
Ed Note: This is a poem my brother James wrote to me on May 8, 1998 before our first meeting. He was living in Korea.
To My Lovely Sis:
There is nothing more precious that I could receive than news of you
We are the same yet different
God has granted me a blessing that I don’t deserve
Yet I do
All my life I knew you were there
Only I assumed you were an angel, nothing new
But someone tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear that I must look for you
For you had looked for me
And eventually I for you
And the heavens opened up for us
For this that we have been granted in the great scheme of things
And now that I know you
I’ll never let you go
All this time I knew that you were there
My mother had not left me
She left me herself on this earth
And told me to be calm…
My daughter and my son
Love James
Mother’s Day-Lost & Found & Lost Again
While Mother’s Day, especially the Hallmark version, is usually a time of celebration, it is also a time of remembered loss for many. I think it’s good to remember those around you as some are celebrating, some are mourning and yet others are trying to balance both.
3 generations of mothers.
I didn’t alway like Mother’s Day. I actually wanted to just kick this holiday to the curb and forget it forever. And then I became a mother
I’ve been a mother for many years now and have enjoyed the adoration, handmade and macaroni inspired jewelry boxes, hand and foot print plaster plaques, handcrafted cards, something I was told was breakfast in bed and all the other fun stuff that comes with being a mom and celebrating in the moment.
I am a motherless daughter which automatically makes me a motherless mother. With or without my own mother or the experience of having her with me, motherhood is hard, it’s challenging and it’s stressful. But it’s also amazing, rewarding and something I can’t imagine myself not ‘being’ even though I started out as someone who didn’t think motherhood was in the cards.
I’ve been writing for years and usually, especially when I had a newspaper column, I would write a funny piece about being a mother or a sobering piece about my struggles with the holiday as someone remembering a lost mother and trying to balance that with being a mother myself. It hasn’t always been easy for me or my family.
And now this Mother’s Day is here and I have had writer’s block for a few weeks now. I have been consumed with a situation in my life that has taken over my every moment. It has been stressful and hard. Very, very hard and I find it difficult to think or write about anything else which is why I am writing this on Mother’s Day.
Shocking news, stumbled upon actually. And then the sleuthing and waiting. God, the waiting. Those that know me understand that this is not one of my strengths.
The waiting is over. The jumbled and jagged pieces of the puzzle have been gathered and put together. All of this leading to a loss. A heartbreaking, unreasonable and beyond sad loss.
I will write more about this loss in future writings. I will connect some dots, move some puzzle pieces around and try to put it all together in a way that my mind can understand and more importantly, in a way my heart can accept and find peace.
My brother James
But for now, for today, as today is all I can handle, I will enjoy my day with my children, think about the mother I never really knew and wish peace to my brother, James, whom I found many years ago after he was adopted and who I have recently discovered, is no longer with us.
Lost and found and lost again.
RIP my brother James. I truly hope you are at peace and have finally met the mother you never had the chance to meet here on earth.
Love,
Your sister
A fave song fitting here.
This post and other mom writings also shared here at KoalaBearWriter
Sister Smiles
I think I’m 3 and full of hope. She is 4 and full of the same. Sisters, not by birth but instead, circumstance. Bonding quickly over playtime at the park and summer time at the pool.
It wasn’t long before we had each other’s backs. We didn’t throw each other under the bus during times of trouble. We banded together, protecting each other from the daily nuances of childhood mischief and more. Like sisters should.
She is Angela. The daughter of my father’s girlfriend. I am my father’s daughter, also the daughter of another mother, not present in my life at this time.
We become a family. For the most part, to us, it’s simple, it’s fun and we feel loved and fed. I remember crying the first day Angela went to school-without me. I felt abandoned and in the beginning, would cry and wait by the window for her return, sometimes wondering if she even would. Looking back now I know this is reminiscent of things I experienced with other important people in my life, namely my own mother.
But she always did and I remember feeling relieved and happy.
We were happy together. And oddly enough, because we weren’t related by blood, strangers on the street would comment on us; our similar personalities, our resemblance, and all in the same breath.
Over the years, we experienced many instances of separation, of what I saw as Angela leaving me. Leaving home. Sometimes coming back and sometimes not.
There have been some close calls and while we no longer share the same balcony, parents or stylish complimentary outerwear, we are in touch, and we care and I think when push comes to shove, we still have each other’s backs.
There
There is shouting and my Mommy is picking me up from the couch.
I think it’s morning as it is no longer dark outside.
The other Mommy is telling my Mommy something but my Mommy is just yelling and crying, the eyeliner she had so carefully applied earlier in the evening, streaming down her face, making her look a bit scary and fragile at the same time.
The other Mommy picks up the phone and my Mommy runs out of the apartment, dragging me with her.
I am glad to see her but am worried because she seems so upset and she is hurting my arm.
I hope that things will be better when we get into our room but we don’t go there.
I’m surprised when Mommy heads out to the street, holding me with one hand and carrying a little green suitcase with the other.
My Button
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