Blessings

I remember my grandmother saying just count your many Blessings.  Sometimes we forget just how many blessings that we do have.  One of my many blessings is my wonderful family.  I am blessed with three grown sons, two daughter in laws and a grandson, a wonderful brother, his wife and family.  I have been blessed with my parents.

My Dad is no longer with us.  The last father's day that my Dad was alive I thought at the last moment to write him a note to tell him how much I loved and appreciated him.  This note was not fancy, just an expression of my love and gratitude. He died a month later.  Just recently, nine years after his death, I went through some of his belonging that I had stuffed into one of my drawers.  When I opened up an address book that he kept there was the heart felt note that I had enclosed with one of my paintings that he had admired.  He had evidently valued it enough to have kept it close.  This made me so happy that I had written that note on an impulse.  Now I truly know that if you feel in your heart that you need to do something for or to visit someone, do it.  I will be for ever grateful for the opportunity that I had to tell my father how very much I loved him,

I am extremely fortunate to have my Mother still living.  Mother has always been kind and loving.  I find that my friends who have lost their mothers come to visit her and all want and enjoy her hugs.  She is the surrogate mother to most of my friends. She is always ready to distribute her love freely.  Mother was not so lucky.  My grandmother died when my mother was in her forties.

Mother was always there whenever I had a problem or needed some help.  Since I had polio at age four, I have needed help often.  She never complained when she had to drop everything to come to my aid when I broke my knee and had two small children to care for.  Or another time when I broke my hip and was divorced with two teenage sons.  She was always there. There were all those operations that I had as a growing child.

She was the best grandmother ever to my sons.

Mother is a talented artist, however she never made her art her priority.  She gifted both my brother and myself by  instilling the love of making art in us as children.  She used art as a way of entertaining us.  She always pointed out things in nature.  She always encouraged us.   I am very thankful to have such a wonderful mother.