Posted on by BWThomas

Motherhood and the hand that rocks the cradle.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Raising a child is like planting a seed and watching it grow into a beautiful flower. Lisa Wingate

It’s been a family weekend. Our daughter attended a bachelorette party, and we looked after our six-month-old breastfed granddaughter. With a good supply of breast milk, bottles, and a hungry baby, we had a wonderful time. She slept like a baby, getting up every few hours to feed, and I felt like I was managing okay, but it was hard to get up this morning.

Raising children is a big job, and we forget how big it was when it is behind us. Motherhood is romanticized; it is a lot of work, but it is one of the most fulfilling roles we get in life. I’m sure it is romanticized because we become so much more when we become mothers than when our only concern was our interests. So much of life is taken up with caring, feeding, and providing for children that we lose connection with people who aren’t parents or want to be parents.

Motherhood is not the power-wielding career some women crave, but when it was said, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” It wasn’t said in jest; the families we are born into color our view of the world, the possibilities we see for our lives, and the dreams for our future.

Fathers and mothers have dreams for their children; they mold and shape them in the early years. Some children rebel, some attain a parent’s dream without realizing their own, some have so many choices but never choose a direction. Sometimes, going with the flow puts people on paths they didn’t know they could choose.

Life works in mysterious ways, and we never know if things we think are bad will work out for good, or things we think are good will end up bad. We have to have faith to deal with what shows up in our lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need not be too harsh with those who need a helping hand because some day we or someone we love may need one.

I wrestle with what help looks like, when we elevate, and when we enable. Are we building a strong, resilient society, or a society that only works for a lucky few?

Life isn’t fair, it will never be fair, and maybe part of what we need to embrace is who we are with our gifts, vulnerabilities, and potential. I wonder if we spend so much time wishing we had other gifts, we don’t use the potential we do have. Are we like roses wishing we were dahlias, or rabbits who would rather be the hawk?

The most precious jewels you’ll ever have around your neck are the arms of your children. Cardinal Mermillod

I think of Mom and Dad, who didn’t have the benefits society offered many, because their parents moved north to homesteads in a new area where schools would eventually be built. Dad often said, “You got a good education.” Looking back at the opportunities available, I wonder why I didn’t do more with what was offered.

We sat around the table last night, and my husband mentioned a detached house we looked at years ago for $110,000.00. We thought Wow, how could we afford that? A few years later, we bought a condo and paid much more. Does anyone make all the right decisions? When we look back on our lives, we had opportunities and choices; we took one road, but we will never know where the other road might have taken us.

How many people look back over their lives and think they should have made different choices? Should I have married him or her? Should we have had more children and started sooner or later? Should we have started a business, or stayed with the good job that would have given us a pension?

Life is about choices, and our choices make us. We become parents, or we don’t, and sometimes it’s a choice, but other times circumstance. Our big goal may elude us, or when we get it feels like an empty victory. We may reach the pinnacle of success in one area of our lives, but fail in others.

If we go forward with a good attitude and gratitude for what we have, and teach our children to be grateful for what they have, as they look for opportunities to contribute to society. I think we’ve succeeded as parents.

As Mother’s Day approaches, many of us give thanks for a mother we can no longer talk to. We hold her memory in our hearts; we appreciate what she taught us, her endless love and support. Even if we didn’t feel endlessly supported and loved, she gave us life and the opportunity to grow and develop into who we are and make the best of this life. If we haven’t made the best of it yet, there might be time to make some choices and make the best of what is still to come.

A salute to mothers who did the best they could. We might not understand the challenges they faced, the choices they felt compelled to make, or the sacrifices made so we would benefit.

Thanks, Mom, for all you were, and all you did.

Parenting is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the hardest thing in the world to do. Matt Walsh

The best kind of parent you can be is to lead by example. Drew Barrymore

The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family. Mother Teresa

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it and return to read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Families build our society, anything destroying families, destroys society.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society, and it is human beings who make a family not the quantity of them, but the quality of them. Ashley Montagu

Do we need a day to celebrate our families? Every day do we celebrate them in some way? Being a grandparent gives us a fuller sense of family as we watch our children become parents our lives become fuller, richer, and deeper.

Some people think they are too young to be a grandparent, we are however old we are, and being a grandparent shouldn’t make us feel older, it should gladden our hearts in ways we can’t imagine. A friend is waiting for her twin grandchildren to be born, double the fun, and double the joy.

We have a short time on this earth, and there is much to fit in, but what is more important than family? One might even wonder why we do the other things; if not for family. If we are fortunate we come from a close-knit family, whether large or small, and we build a close-knit family of our own.

Is Family Day hard for those who gave up on family because of disagreements, unmet expectations, or misunderstandings? If we talk to people who built families and stayed together, we know it wasn’t always easy, because life has its ups and downs, for all of us.

Of all the days we celebrate, and let’s be honest someone or many people wanted a holiday in February, but I do love celebrating family day because the family is the building block of society, the very foundation of all we have built.

The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled. Lynden B. Johnson

Do we need to celebrate our families, embrace the forces bringing us together, and minimize the forces tearing them apart? We might not agree on everything that will make our families and society stronger, but strengthening families strengthens everything about our society. Billy Graham told us, “When the family is destroyed, society eventually disintegrates.”

What do we need to say no to, and what do we need to say yes to, to strengthen our family, and if each family can be a little stronger won’t the whole society become stronger? What practices and beliefs if we follow them will help us strengthen our family through the generations, and what practices and beliefs will weaken our families? Do we need to make the right choices while we still have an impact on our family?

Are we proud of our families, what we’ve built, what’s been accomplished, and what we want future generations to accomplish?

For some, family day will be hard because someone is missing, Mom or Dad’s chair is empty, or worse a child’s, but is celebrating by getting together better than mourning alone?

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold. Andre Maurois

The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. C.S. Lewis

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. Gilbert K. Chesterton

Thank you for reading this post, please come back and read more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those who read my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate link.

Posted on by BWThomas

Mother’s Day without Mom, but she’ll always live in my heart.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible – a wound that will never quite heal. Susan Wiggs

Mother’s Day without our mother, for some of us happens early, and for some of us it happens late, but for most of us, there will be Mother’s Days without Mom. I feel for so many people who lose their mothers too young. If we are as lucky as I have been to have gotten from Mom all she had to give, for her to have gotten from life all there was to get, it is not the same as those cut down in life when there is still so much to experience.

There are conversations I would still like to have, and trips to see her I would still like to take, but here we are and it’s okay. But I say that as someone whose mother lived to ninety-nine. She got to meet all of her grandchildren, many great-grandchildren, and some great-great-grandchildren.

Even when we no longer have loved ones with us we have memories. We are blessed if we have fond memories of our mother and can reach out and touch her with a hug or a phone call. We are also blessed if while we could we made the best of the time we had with her.

We have to be careful we make the effort to stay in touch with family, it is easy to be involved in our own life especially if they are far away and not in contact as often as we should. There is no way to be a perfect mother, but there are as many ways to be good ones, as there are good mothers. We may wish we handled certain parts of motherhood better, just like we may wish we handled parts of life better, but if we did the best we knew how to do then what more can we ask of ourselves?

My mom is a never ending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. Graycie Harmon

If we have relationships that need repair and we are capable of repairing them we should attempt to heal the breach. Maybe we need to forgive ourselves for being the frail human we are, we made mistakes, we hurt someone, we misjudged, we wrongfully accused, or we expected more than they were capable of giving.

If we expect too much from people they will disappoint us, if we expect too much from ourselves we will fall short, but expecting more from ourselves and less from others instead of the other way around will lead to a happier life. We can keep trying to become who we want to become, but trying to get someone else to become who we want them to become will not end well. We need to accept people as they are, we can encourage them toward the great things we see they could do, but the life we see for them, and the life they want for themselves may not be the same thing.

The hardest part of being a mother may be giving up control of our children’s lives. When they are young we control everything, what they wear, what they learn, who is part of their life, and who isn’t. It doesn’t take long before they start making their own decisions, and part of our job is not to tell them what to do, but to let them grow and develop to take control of their own life and their own decisions. We will see them make mistakes, we’ve made our share, but if we believe we’ve learned more from our failures than our successes, so too will they.

We may wish families stayed together when we hear of a young family fractured, young children spending time with each parent separately instead of as a family. But, what if what is important is the love from each parent, not so much the love each parent has for each other? In an ideal world, everyone loves everyone and stays together forever, but we don’t live in an ideal world.

Expecting everything to be ideal is part of what disillusions us with life. Life is messy, relationships are messy, and when hard times come some pull together and some will pull apart. We might hope we are the ones that will pull together, we hope we can heal the breaches, we hope we can become stronger in the broken places, but we only control our side of the relationship, and if we are a mother watching our children living their lives, we have no control at all.

What we can offer as a mother is comfort, wisdom, understanding, and being there as much as possible without trying to take over. Our children grow up to take their place in the world, chart their course, and navigate the difficulties of life. We need to trust we’ve given them enough to become self-reliant, strong, and resilient people who can deal with what is theirs to deal with.

If we are lucky no matter what the distance was between us and our mother we had a close relationship, and even though one day she’s gone she still lives in our hearts. We are blessed if we have a good mother; it is our gift to our children and the world to be one.

Mom, you are the most beautiful memory I kept locked inside my heart. Narin Grewal

One day we will remember how lucky we were to have known their love, with wonder, not grief. Elizabeth Postle

Whenever I am missing you. I also remember how fortunate I was that you were in my life. I wouldn’t trade those moments for the world. Cindy Adkins

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

We are part of the greatest creation in the world – family.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Life feels complete when you’re together with your family. Unknown

Last night my daughter hosted a family dinner in honor of Mom. We talked and laughed late into the night. How wonderful family gatherings are filled with love and laughter. My brother next to me called me after we left Mom’s, telling me he and his family are still going to have the 100th year celebration for Mom we were planning in August. He will do it from his place with a zoom call with all who are interested in joining in. We might end up having a larger celebration than we could have if everyone gathered in one place.

One of the things Mom said about her 100th celebration, “You can have it with or without me.” That we can all get together and talk and laugh whether in person or on a zoom call, it is the getting together, the stories and the laughter that is important. My husband is having group chats with members of his family that live abroad.

Reach out and touch someone, it has never been easier, but maybe the easier things get, the more we don’t do them, because they are so easy, it can happen any time, until it can’t.

My son, who hasn’t yet produced a grandchild expounded on what parents expect of their offspring, who they give so much too, and ask so little of, a grandchild to love and watch take their place in the world.

People who haven’t created a family don’t know what they are missing, or so those of us who have, believe. Who would have surrounded Mom at her bedside if she didn’t have children? Who would surround me at mine if I didn’t have any?

I almost didn’t post today, because sitting with family, enjoying a day off with nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company spreads before me. My daughter is taking her son for a walk, so I turned on my computer.

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues… are created, strengthened, and maintained. Winston Churchill

We had happy news on Valentine’s Day, I became a great-aunt again, to a wonderful, healthy, baby boy. The family circle continues and we are part of an unbroken line. No matter what we do, no matter what we accomplish, I don’t believe there is a greater joy than beholding the hope and promise in a baby’s face.

We all want the world to be better for our children and grandchildren, and we have to believe it is possible to build a better world, but do we know what a better world looks like? Do we think a life of ease and plenty will build a better society? Have not the best societies been built on sacrifice for the greater good? What would it mean if we said we were going to live our lives with the greater good in mind? That we would expect to look back at the end of our life and be proud of the decisions we made, the hardships we endured, and the opportunities we passed up for something greater?

Building a marriage and a family is that choice and if we knew the sacrifices we would make at the beginning we might not tread that path, but who, when they see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren think it was all for naught? We need to take the long view in life and know that moments of happiness come, but if we are always chasing happiness we might miss true contentment for a life well lived.

For in the end, what if what we are most proud of is some of the things we most hated while we were going through them? We were with someone in their hardest time, which was also our hardest time. We stood up against something wrong when standing up for it was not popular, and we endured when we wanted to give up. Decisions over time build our life and those decisions will be what we are proud of or ashamed of. Sometimes it is the choice between bad and good and we make the wrong choice we are later ashamed of, but sometimes the choices are between two good choices, or between two bad choices, and we have to make the best of what we choose.

When it is time to choose, if we always keep our family first in our hearts and choose what will be best for them in the long run, will we be prouder of our choices than if we don’t?

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Paul Pearsall

In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future. Alex Haley

The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. C.S. lewis

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

It’s not the years in our life that matter it’s the life in our years. Can we live till we die and die all at once?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. Mother Teresa

Mom died on January 27, 2024, and was born on November 21, 1924. My youngest sister, Mom’s niece from California, and I were with her as she took her last breath. My sister looked at me, “It was supposed to be beautiful, and it wasn’t beautiful.”

“It wasn’t horrible,” I replied. Somewhere between beautiful and not horrible is an okay death. Some deaths come too soon, some seem to take forever, and some seem, just right.

Mom only wanted two things, one was to have all her children together, we were planning it for her hundredth birthday, but it happened the Wednesday before her death with all of us present except one brother and he was on speaker phone playing recordings of her brother and Dad playing instruments and singing. We couldn’t have had the recordings play if he’d been there in person, the sound quality was questionable, but it brought us back to happy times.

Mom hugged and acknowledged everyone, and earlier we’d thought our three sisters and brother coming from the airport might not make it. We called and told them, “Do not stop, come straight,” and they did.

I marvel still that we all realized and heeded that realization, it was now or never to see Mom one more time and be with each other. Regrets often happen when we don’t do the thing we know to do, we could have thought we’ll get things in order and come the next week, but it would have been too late. Mom didn’t want a funeral if you didn’t see her when she was alive she didn’t see why you would move heaven and earth to go to her funeral.

The other thing Mom wanted was to stay in her own home, and she got that too. Home care came in the last few days before she died and the first night she thought they came to take her to the hospital or a nursing home. “Don’t let them take me,” we think we heard.

“They are here to help you stay in your home,” we told her, but the next morning she had her feet out of the bed as if she wanted to prove she didn’t need to go to a hospital or a home.  We reassured her again and it seemed okay.

Palliative Care gave us a form for an, ‘Expected Death in the Home” so we didn’t need the ambulance, police, and coroner. There were no uncomfortable questions to answer because it was an expected death.

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people, and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success. Ralph Waldo Emerson

To live a good long happy and productive life, with a reasonable death, and no or few regrets is a reasonable goal. There are a few things I think Mom did that gave her a long healthy life, free of disease until the end. When she had a problem she tried to figure out what caused it, and quit doing what caused it. She walked until the end, and my brother swears quilting added ten years to her life, and I believe him. She lived alone, but wasn’t lonely, until close to the end when what had kept her busy was beyond her.

Mom left her mark with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. In the next couple of days, a new great-grandson will be born. The circle of life continues, and we are somewhere in that circle. If we make the most of what we have, our time, talents, and contributions then we too can close our eyes for the last time with no or few regrets whenever that time comes.

We must hoist up the load that is ours to bear and do it with good cheer, perseverance, and gratitude because even though we know it could be better, we also know it could be worse. One of the things we can always do is make our life worse, we might not always be able to make it better but often there are small things we can do to make things better for ourselves and someone else.

We don’t know how much someone needs a smile or a bit of cheerful conversation, how that little act, so small and insignificant might help a hurting soul. It might be the only interaction they get all day, and it might make a difference.

We think it is big things that lead to a good life, but more and more I think the small, seemingly insignificant things that add onto each other are what create the good life, and it is why a good life is within the reach of all of us.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Mae West

To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. Marcus Aurelius

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. Carl Rogers

Thank you for reading this post, and please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon; if you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Perseverance, if we can persevere, we can overcome.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. Victor Hugo      

Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout, along came the rain and washed the spider out. Along came the sun and dried up all the rain and itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

This little poem has been going around and around my brain. It must be about thirty-five years ago I saw a fellow Toastmaster give a speech about Itsy Bitsy Spider. She was a teacher who had just come back from a trip to Europe and a month later she died of cancer. There aren’t a lot of speeches I remember but I remember hers, is it because she died a month later?

Sometimes we pick up a book and it is precisely what we need to read, or watch a movie that is exactly what we need to see. We don’t even all agree on what was in the book or the film because we are each touched differently by what we read and see.

We are all impacted in our lives by people we meet, and we impact others. The impact we make counts. Most of us will never impact the world in any great way; no big or small invention will have our name on it.  We won’t impact people outside of our circle, but our circle impacts other circles, whether that circle is our family, community, or workplace. It is part of the whole as are we.

We all have our contribution to make and I know we sometimes look at the contribution some are making and ask ourselves, what kind of a contribution is that? We may see some people on their worst day and see some people on their best day and we might be totally wrong about who in the end makes the biggest contribution.

There are many conflicting ideas about how society should be built, what we as a society should value, and how we should deal with the challenges of our time. I feel sure we’ll go up the water spout a few times while we are figuring this out. We hope people we elect have answers that we don’t have, and we hear people expound on theories they never have to put into practice so they can continue to expound on them. I was listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer in a podcast he said, “When I didn’t have children I had lots of theories about raising children, now I have children but no theories.”

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world, all rests on perseverance. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A society based on principles we all believe in is a good place to start. One of the things many people believe is the rich are getting richer, some believe the poor are getting poorer, but others believe the poor are also getting richer. We become a victim of our success and I believe that is what a lot of our housing problem is. Everyone wants to live in a few places, the prices are being driven up, demand outstrips supply, and we are playing musical chairs for housing.

Is the antidote to this a less successful society? Who wants that? What if we are always somewhere on that water spout and life looks different to us depending on whether the sun is shining or the rain is falling? We might find it easy to be too optimistic when the sun is shining and too pessimistic when the rain is falling. What if we need to find balance knowing in every life a little rain will fall, what if all of us will face challenges in our lives, but we don’t know what part of life those challenges will come?

What if knowing we can keep on keeping on is the greatest attitude we can have, and we will live through it all the bitter, the sweet, the happy, and the sad? No one only gets a sweet life, and would it be a great life if we did, we wouldn’t even know how good we had it because we’d have nothing to compare it to.

It seems some of the greatest people have lived through the greatest challenges. Those challenges made them who they are. Should we really want soft and easy lives, or should we look for ways to take on a load in life, carry it with dignity, and make something better?

I’ve come to think of marriage and raising children as a load we carry, and sometimes the load is easy and gives us more than it asks of us, and sometimes it asks more than it gives, but if we give up in the hard times we will never get back to the easy fun times and we will forever have a fractured family. Sometimes a fractured family may be better than a chaotic broken one that stays together, and only the people in it may know for sure which is which, and even they might not be sure.

Imagine, it’s not just itsy bitsy spider going up the spout but the whole family. It might be easier to scramble up it by ourselves, but when we get to the top we are alone. If we can bring our family with us, it will be challenging, and the journey will be longer, but when we get to the top, and we are all together, how much more joyous will it be?

Don’t give up before the miracle happens. Fannie Flagg

Success seems to be connected with action Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. Conrad Hilton

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas A. Edison

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those who read my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Family is the steady rock; we need to accept ourselves and our family warts and all.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A family doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be united. Unknown

Are we unhappy about the things that don’t work out in our lives or celebrating what is working? Isn’t there always something, big or small that is not working out how we want it to?

Tomorrow we leave for a road trip starting in Vancouver, British Columbia, and ending in Calgary, Alberta. There will be five of us and a fourteen-month-old baby. Will there be hiccups along the way, undoubtedly? Will tempers be frayed at times, certainly? We are fitting a lot into a short time, for sure, but in order to see everyone and everything we want to see, it has to be this way.

We are so fortunate to be able to make this trip and for our grandson to meet his great-grandmother who turns ninety-nine this November. He won’t remember this trip or his great-grandmother but there will be pictures and stories.

This trip came together because as my daughter and I planned to take her son to see mom everyone said we should come too, and here we are the day before we leave.

Today we’ll tie up some loose ends, give our dog a bath before she goes to where she’ll be staying, and water the plants as well as pop last-minute things into our luggage. We haven’t been on a family holiday since our daughter got married almost five years ago.

My kids saw their grandma the fall before the wedding and we are so fortunate mom is still with us. One of the challenges, when we move far from home, is getting back to see family. How fortunate we are to have a family to visit. There is a tie to our family that time and distance don’t erase. When we get together, no matter how long it is since we’ve seen each other there is a sense of belonging. We are part of it, we belong.

We might not have an easy time growing up, sometimes we don’t see things the way our parents do, and our choices don’t align with theirs, but I think most families find a way to accept each other warts and all. No one gets a perfect family where everyone does what they should, always make the best choices, or has the best reaction to someone else’s choices. We sometimes want things for someone that they don’t want for themselves, and we have to accept we can’t control others.

Family, we may not have it all together, but together we have it all. Unknown

“There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us”, is something Mom has said all my life, and my nephew says, “We love them cause their kin.” That sums up family, made up of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and at various times we might find ourselves in any of those categories. One of the problems we find in families is when they want to pretend there is no bad, or ugly in the family. We don’t all act perfectly all the time, we don’t always treat everyone fairly, think kind thoughts or expect the best of someone else. We have to be okay with our ugly side because it’s part of being human.

If we can accept ourselves warts and all, then maybe we can accept others as well. We have to be careful we don’t fracture families by making it seem that if families aren’t overjoyed with the decisions their children are making they can’t be told the truth about what is going on. When we create secrets in the family even if we think we are doing it for a good reason, it will likely have a bad outcome. When someone realizes you didn’t trust them enough to tell them the truth about yourself, how will they feel, and how will this strengthen the family? If we as a society encourage children and teenagers to keep secrets from their parents are we really doing a good thing even if what we are trying to do is support the children in their decisions?

Parents want the best for their children, and we as a society must trust this is so, because who do children have to turn to if they can’t turn to their parents and family? We have to be careful that by expecting perfection in families we don’t fracture them more and do more damage because perfection is the enemy of the good. Good intentions, have caused a lot of problems, and there are often unintended consequences no one wants to be responsible for, but what if our meddling is responsible?

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. Gail Lumet Buckley

In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony. Friedrich Nietzsche

We start with our family, we may stray as life goes on but we all end up with our family – appreciate them. Catherine Pulsifer

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale.

Posted on by BWThomas

Happy families and unhappy families may be the difference in how we look at the realities of living together.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Family is the biggest support system in the times of trouble. Invaly

Last Thursday one of the speeches at Toastmasters was about lessons a member learned from her mother. As I listened to her talk I thought, how many of us listening are thinking, it’s like we have the same mother.

Tolstoy said, “Happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Could it be that in happy families people realize no one is perfect and they allow for imperfections with humor, forgiveness, and mercy?

What if we all have a story to tell about our families, and the big difference is how we view the realities of another’s imperfections and how they view ours? Haven’t we all disappointed others and been disappointed by others? This is the nature of life with other people, but how we react to the disappointments may be what is important, do we sum up our partner by their faults or do they sum us up by our faults? It isn’t important or even possible to marry someone without faults.

We are watching a show, “Match Me Abroad,” people who couldn’t find love in their own country are going abroad with picky, picky attitudes looking for someone who will not irritate them. I’m not a psychic but I have a pretty good idea that if no one in your own country is good enough for you, going to another country won’t likely be that much better. Because what they are taking with them is their attitude.

A good sense of humor goes a long way in relationships, but not if we make jokes at the other person’s expense. Sometimes we have to dig deep to find the funny in the situation, but if we look at things with a critical heart we might end up with a black hole where love should be, and all the life gets sucked out of the marriage.

If we can laugh together over things that could make us cry, realize we aren’t perfect, but we are still lucky to have each other, and the fact we don’t see things the same way can give us a bigger view of life. It’s our choice, we can carry every sling and arrow, every thoughtless action, every selfish act as if it was meant to hurt us, or we can believe they have the best of intentions even if it doesn’t look that way, and we can hope they view our faults the same.

You go through life wondering what is it all about, but at the end of the day, it’s all about family. Rod Stewart

If someone has stood by our side through the thick and thin of life, sacrificed some of what they wanted so we could get some of what we wanted, and if we can acknowledge that the disappointments our partner has faced are at least equal to what we have faced, but at least we have someone to share these disappointments as well as the joys and accomplishments with, how lucky are we?

If we have a partner, and we aren’t looking for someone to fill the chair on the other side of the table, that is a blessing. We can plan dinner and have someone to share it with. We can laugh at the antics of our children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren. We can share our dreams and our disappointments; we can make plans for the trip we’ve always planned on taking.

If we have a partner, we have someone that has our back, someone to call if the car breaks down, someone to hug, and share small and big moments with. I wonder how many people gave up on an imperfect relationship, only to find themselves in another imperfect relationship wondering if they shouldn’t have stayed in the first imperfect one.

Jim Rohn tells us, “Don’t ask for things to be easier, ask to be better.” We can’t change our partner and they can’t change us, but can we give the other person as much grace as we hope they will give us? If we look at their quirks and shortcomings with humor and forgiveness perhaps they can look at ours the same way. We won’t be a perfect family but maybe a happy one. Pope Francis said, “The family is a factory of hope,” and isn’t that a wonderful way to look at our family as our own little hope factory?

Let your first interest be in your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days. Gordon B. Hinckley

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other. Mario Puzo

That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable. Deb Caletti

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the price through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

We fall in love, but we build a marriage. Anything we build needs maintenance.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day. Barbara De Angelis

Creativity feeds our soul, food feeds our body, books feed our minds, and love makes our world go around. This is why we love to cook for people we love. We stir our creations with love and sharing a meal becomes more than just a pit stop for food.

When we have family gatherings we have food. Yesterday we were all getting together and then realized it was the Super Bowl so instead of the dinner I had planned my daughter made nachos and chicken wings. Everyone stayed for the half-time show and then it was time to go home to get ready for the week ahead.

No matter what else we accomplish in life building a family is what gives us our greatest joy, most worry, and biggest sorrow when they break apart. Family is the glass ball we juggle along with all our other balls, and it is the one we must protect as we build a career, fit creative endeavors, and everything else into our lives. We often take our family for granted until something happens and we realize we should have put more into it, made more time, and realized it was the priority that needed tending.

Marriages are the foundation of our families but anyone who is in one knows “happily ever after,” is a fairytale for most, because it implies that getting married was the big thing when staying married, and staying happily married is the challenge.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche

We don’t want to hear that love is a verb but we might be better off thinking of building a family as a duty we are taking on, rather than buying into the idea of a romantic fairytale, one true love, and the ideal partner.

What if our job is to do our best to become the ideal partner, for our one true love which we chose to go through life with, and they only become our one true love if we continue to be true to them? We are the ones that need to have true love by being steadfast, honest, and true as we go through the challenges that life throws at us. What if it is only at the end of our lives that we can say we have true love because we endured to the end?

It doesn’t sound romantic to endure, but isn’t part of life enduring, getting through the hard parts to get to the better parts? The winter of our relationship will give way to springtime if we don’t give up, we don’t get bitter, and if we don’t do something that sabotages the relationship.

Giving up may be one of the great mistakes of our lives, we give up on ourselves, or someone we love in a moment of weakness, and see everything we’ve built come tumbling down. It might be a “little thing” that leads to winter in our relationship, but if we don’t repair the rift, we won’t be walking hand in hand in the sunshine of the spring that is coming.

If we are lucky enough to have a partner we need to hold on tight and make the best of the lives we are building together. We don’t only get the good parts we have to move through the seasons of life and love.

Marriage stands the test of time when both you and your spouse work toward making things better. And we are tested the most when we face adversities. If you can sail through the adversities as one, as a team, then you have won half the battle. Unknown

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Mignon McLaughlin

True love stands by each other’s side on good days and stands closer on bad days. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Celebrating our families, generation to generation. Our families are with us to the end and are our legacy.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one. Anonymous

Yesterday we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday in a restaurant. As a family, we haven’t been out to a restaurant in a long time. We debated which restaurant to go to but my mother-in-law made the final choice. There were nine of us and our four-month-old grandson. We worried about taking him to the restaurant. But, he was wonderful and our server oohed and aahed over him to the delight of his mother and the rest of us. He’s a beautiful baby but he’s ours and we are just a little biased. Another cute baby showed up at the restaurant with his parents. We had to know how old he was and were told he was six months old. He was also very good while his parents ate their dinner.

It is lovely when we can get together and celebrate milestones. We never know when it might be our last chance to celebrate with someone. We need to take advantage of these special moments in our lives while we can. It’s been a lovely year of celebrating for us. We have one more wedding to attend this fall, our friend’s daughter is getting married.

The circle of life continues and watching our younger generation take their place, getting married, and having babies, lets us know that we as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and society in general have done okay. We have challenges before us, every generation has its challenges, the generations before us will have their challenges but we hope they will meet those challenges and life will continue to improve for most of us.

My mother is not one who longed for the good old days. She and Dad grew up in tough times, the thirties, and then their generation went to war. I look back on the life I’ve been privileged to live. It has been a life of peace and plenty, full of opportunities, but often those opportunities weren’t recognized as opportunities when they presented themselves.

Even though we’ve lived through peace and plenty it doesn’t mean it has been an easy road. What does an easy road look like, and is an easy road what we really want? It seems to me what we’ve thought of as success has been just over the next hill, we’ve never quite attained what we would call success, and I am beginning to think that makes a great life.

The greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories. Unknown

Working toward something more than actually attaining it may be where the real joy in life lies. How would I feel if I’ve written the best blog post I could ever write, written the best book, painted the best picture, or given the best speech? Mom and I were talking the other day and counting in our heads the number of her grandchildren, great and great, great-grandchildren. We came up with forty-seven.

Mom was visited by her great-granddaughter and her husband, son, and daughter. They had a lovely visit and the kids are old enough to remember visiting their great, great grandmother. Many of us don’t remember our grandmothers let alone great, and great, great grandmothers.

I saw a post on Facebook saying we are burying the people who kept families together. This has always been the case and the torch has been thrown to the next generation to keep the family together. We need to take up our responsibilities to keep our families together so that our children and grandchildren will continue this tradition. Many of our families are smaller now, but a couple of generations fill a restaurant, house, or backyard for a celebration. It doesn’t matter where we choose to do our celebration, only that we do.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings. Ann Landers

Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches. Wanda Hope Carter

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.