Life is NOT a Bed of Roses

The main reason I write this blog is for my children and one day my grandchildren.  Also, for the family that we don't get to see all the time so they can follow along with us on our journey.  I am having my blog printed into a book, so I can pass it down one day.  No, not Blog2Print, although it is a great site, I am working with a publishing company to achieve what I want in a book.  That being said, I don't nor will I ever lie in my blog or to my children and tell them life is roses.  I don't sugar coat life as some bloggers do.  I have found a great number of blogs lately where moms tell it like it is, and for that I am so thankful.


One thing I don't want to do is have my children grow up and something bad happen to them and then they want to know why their life went wrong when my life seems perfect from my blog.  Perfect it is not, it is full of day to day challenges as I'm sure almost everyone's is.  The difference, I'll blog about it.  My blog is about my real life.  The uncut version.  It's an adventure, it's fun but chaotic, happy but sad, it's LIFE.

Many many years ago, in my teen years, I had family that went through something... something pretty rough.  They were distance cousins, people I didn't know, but my dad did.  We went to the funeral of a female cousin, she was older...  Two weeks before her funeral, her father passed away, then only days before her funeral, her husband took his own life.  We were now at her funeral because she had a heart attack and passed away.  The preacher was another cousin, cousin Wayne, I remember his name because years later he preached my Mamaw and Papaw's funerals and grew up with my dad.  Something he said at her funeral still stays with me...  He explained her heart attack and the two events the prior two weeks leading up to her passing as part of a cross stitch.  He said those deaths were the final two black threads in her picture.  They finished her life, her picture and then God could hang it on the wall and call her home.  Everyone's life is a cross stitch, everything happens for a reason and everything is a different color thread.

When I was 17 and I gave birth to my first born, only to have him go to Heaven seven hours and twenty-one minutes later, I didn't understand, but I knew there was a reason.  It wouldn't be until years later when I'm at the point in my life that I can look back and see that what I have now is all because of what happened that day, that sad day.  That day that changed the whole direction of my life was August 17, 1998.

On September 16, 2009, I was left to question, why?, once again.  My cousin, Chris, who I had been pretty close to growing up, had become a Baptist preacher, following in his father's footsteps.  He married a very nice and pretty girl and they had two wonderful children.  When I buried my son, he came to the funeral, but she didn't because she was pregnant with their first and it would be traumatic to her, which I totally understood.  They had a little boy years after that.  She got very sick very quickly and passed away on September 16, 2009 from complications from H1N1.  Here stood a Man of God and he has lost his young wife and their twp young children were left without a mother.  "Bad things happen to good people."  Ever heard that saying?  Well, it's very true.  I will never forget being at the funeral home and the moment Chris saw my dad, he all but collapsed in my dad's arms, saying "I loved her Unc, I loved her."

Life is not always pretty, life is not always roses.  If we choose to teach our children that it is, then they will grow up to disappointment and always wonder what they did wrong.  When the truth is, they didn't do anything wrong, things happen and it's just life.  We can put ourselves in the right place mentally and spiritually, but that doesn't mean nothing bad will ever happen.  When I attended my Uncle, my dad's brother's funeral, and I held my Mamaw's hand and she said, "it's not supposed to be like this, you're not supposed to bury your own child," I thought I knew what she meant.  But I didn't.  I didn't KNOW until that day that changed my life in August.

The truth is, each day can either be good or bad, but embrace it as another day here to tell those you love just that, that you love them.  Don't let things go thinking, I'll tell them tomorrow... They may not be there.  Don't leave things undone or unsaid, or they may always be left that way.  To my family and children and future children's children, I love you and want you to know, when you mess up, your family will always be there to pick up the pieces.  Always be there to help you out and do everything we can to help you because we all know, life is NOT a bed of roses.