Tag: memories

The Ties of Connection

I wrote the following post 4 years ago before knowing how deeply my family would be affected by addiction and therefore how important connection, and the joy of memories would become.

It was soon after, that I began my deep dive into studying addiction. Little did I know the changes that would come and how much more “raw and isolated” I would become. At the time, I was very grateful for my relationship with my 2 older kids and my entire family. We were all doing relatively great but the seeds of despair had already started to show glimpses of discontentment.

2018:

Several studies have linked lack of connection to many struggles including suicide, depression, addiction, mental illness, self harm, job dissatisfaction & even the mass shooters in the news.

This lack of connection can be with community, self, family, a partner, a higher Divinity or society in general.

This winter has left me feeling very raw & isolated. Not due to the weather, but rather with some shadowy streaks of fear rising up. Fear related to instability & unsurity, lonliness, & the pressure to achieve certain results.

Normally, throughout our lives, when this turmoil arises in our belly; we have that go-to person in the form of a partner, a grown child, or our parents. That person validates our emotions and helps us find our center.

Sometimes this person is male. For the last 2 1/2 years, I have developed absolute respect for the men in our lives who carry so much weight. They are the pillars. Our strength. Our ‘please open this jar’ go-to people. They know the buck stops with them for the next house payment and electric bill to be paid.


They have to think if their child needs more medical care or higher college costs all while trying to be competitive & skilled in their career PLUS keeping the women and children safe & happy.

Until you lose that support it’s easy to take it for granted how much we all rely on each other.

Single moms know it, disabled people know it, parents of sick children know it, & people who’s parents have died know it.

In my journey of feeling loved, safe & finding joy, I’ve missed the listening ear of my parents tremendously. Even though they’ve been gone 11 years this year, it still leaves a big hole in your life.

My mom & I would sit & talk on the phone for hours. Sometimes saying absolutely nothing for minutes at a time! Can you imagine that today, in this busy world?

My 2 older kids are my phone pals now. They will lovingly talk to me for hours at a time. They always seem to bring me back to source, back to reality, back to Love. ❣️

I have become so incredibly close to those 2 humans the last year that it’s crazy. So grateful for them 💙💘

My point of this post on this international women’s day is to love on everyone around you today. The effort people in your life make just to keep themselves running & everything else humming is amazing. As a nurse, when someone has a stroke or a devastating illness, I see firsthand the amount of work it takes to keep one human functioning.

Look at what Mom’s do! Every day they keep families, husbands, households, jobs, cars & yards running in functional & beautiful order!!!

Hug your parents & kids today💝


Tell them what you notice about how they try to make things better. For themselves or others. Tomorrow they could be gone in an instant.

Thank you to my kids, their beautiful partners, & anyone who helps them be a higher version of their selves.

I’m incredibly grateful to all of you.

🙏💖🙏💖🙏

Facebook memories like this can evoke feelings of sadness. The loss that’s felt when a child veers away from the family. The parents who have suffered permanent physical loss know this sadness well. Facebook even has a filter which you can say I don’t want to see memories from this person or place or time.

But who wants to erase the feeling of better times?

Who wants to forget about joy?

Joy transcends. From a child’s smile to the fresh whiff of a newborn baby’s smell. From a steaming cup of coffee to the first buds of spring -revealed through the tiny tulip bulbs peeking up through the semi-frozen ground.

Joy washes over us in waves. Sometimes the waves are noticeable like the tingling butterflies we feel with a new love. Other times we are so busy in the moment that we don’t realize how precious and valuable they are until many months or years after.

As we dig deeper into our feelings during challenging times; its easy to get caught up in the sadness. The trick is to take the beauty of sadness and marinate it with the precious memories we cherish of our child. Then we can turn our pain into deep compassion and love. Compassion for ourselves. For all you’ve experienced. For the journey of a thousand miles of a momma who cares. A momma who just wants her precious family back. A momma who did the best she could with under suspicious and vicious odds.

A momma full of love. Full of memories. Full of joy. 

The joy of love.
The love of joy.

Weeds and Wishes

Today was one of those days when I realized again how one day in your life can change everything you know just by your perception. What you previously complained about now seemed like some big misunderstanding. Or how you would love to go back and only have that thing or situation to complain about.

Take Beauty and the Beast. When she was living in her village she thought it to be a “provincial” life. Oh how she yearned for more. But when she was trapped in the dungeon her old life seemed like heaven and she would give anything to be back.

Soon she chose to see the beauty in the place and find the magic. She made it seem so wonderful that she almost hated to leave.

Beauty and the Beast (Original) by Beauty and the Beast (Ron Embleton)
(Ref: EmbletonRBABLL
How to make every day so wonderful that we hate for it to end?

Even though we are tired, or sick, or can’t seem to get anything done, or we are sick with worry over a child or a grandchild; it might be helpful to remember that this is just a blip in our life. It’s a moment we can never regain.

This weekend we watched old family movies. I used to just sit the camera in the room and record our everyday life. As we watched our lives in the seemingly mundane moments of yesteryear, we realized that any one of us would give anything to go back there just for a day. Knowing what we know now- we would make that day heaven. We would hug and look deep into the eyes of our then 9-year-old and tell her everything going to be ok. Smile at their childlike innocence. We would look at our aged parents and say: “You know how much I appreciate all you’ve done for me, for raising me and sacrificing for me”

I would tell my teenage kids to enjoy that day because in exactly 12 years you are going to be looking at the tape of this day and say “Wow. I didn’t have one bill to pay, I didn’t know real sickness or real pain or sorrow. My heart hadn’t been broken into pieces, I haven’t had to watch my child suffer through surgery or through an illness or through the pain of loneliness or the unkindness of the world.–and yet I still was sassy, or was onery, or miserable because THAT day didn’t go right… or someone said something wrong to ” me…”

THAT DAY can never be given back…Just like today can never be recouped. The whole theory of being present is sometimes such a struggle. We are always looking for the next thing. Always searching- for a better way. Searching for more personal development, searching for positiveness and kindness, When I don’t get it I pout. Then I look for more. On and on it goes in the endless cycle of the rat race, while each day of opportunity disappears. Finally, we realize all our chances are fast being used up. The chance to help someone have a better day. The chance to help my patient feel better about being holed up in a 12 x 14 room for weeks on end. The chance to make a difference.

If I offend someone today. I might feel a lot of guilt about it, yet at the same time, I spend precious time JUSTIFYING my actions!! We can convince ourselves of ANYTHING if given enough time, but we can never get that time back.
I just want time to slow down. I want to feel every second. I want to live every second. To not always be looking ahead – to lunch-to the weekend. 

I want to live while I can. Life is just too short for weeds. And just long enough for wishes.

Re-Booting

Have you ever had a place that you’ve loved as long as you can remember? A place where every single smell, tree or sunset gave you such pleasure and comfort that you could think of nothing else but when you could return again and again? Like picking Apples from Grandma’s apple tree, savoring the taste of the sweet juice or basking in the heaviness of the hot air on your skin, breathing in every ounce of sunshine you could?

A place where your kids planned all their hopes & dreams. Where your momma & daddy, now long gone, could let down their stresses and judgements & just BE…. even for a weekend.
Then suddenly, like a virus, something unknown, sweeps in, & soon you notice a lil bad taste in your mouth. Like a poison, infecting your thoughts, your dreams. Maybe you had to sell Grandma’s house & you couldn’t contain your emotions, the memories, the feeling of loss…..
Ya, that’s where I’m at right now. Bittersweet precious memories of this beautiful valley, the big open skies, the palm trees seemingly out of place in Utah ,yet right at home. My thoughts intertwined with Hope for the future, of better things to come.
As 2 of my kids move closer to me this weekend, it’s a valuable reminder to love every second of your life, every opportunity that comes your way. Because you don’t know what tomorrow brings.

Hope is a beautiful thing … it connects the past with the future. It helps you survive your darkest thoughts..IF you are given that precious ray of hope….a true gift at just the right moment….

We will reboot, rebuild & come out of this funk that has reawakened our deepest fears but yet stirred up new dreams of hope & adventure.
Here’s to new endeavors….