Epitaphs

Wandering thru a cemetery on a breezy summer day is something to leave you pondering the meaning of your life. The meaning of a life in general. Not so much the typical “Why are we here?”, “Where did we come from?”, “What is my purpose?” questions, but more so the question of life itself.

Sometimes when its quiet, I like to let my mind wonder just to see where it takes me. The mind is a wonderful thing, with the power to dream, fantasize and imagine. The power to store images from years before, memories you had since lost sight of, ideas and philosophies on life that you had forgotten existed there at all.

On Sunday I did just that. After paying respects at Donnie’s moms grave site, I walked past countless others as I stopped to read the tombstones. “To know her was to love her.” was boldly written in memory of a 16 year old girl. Her picture tucked gently in the embedded stone locket. She was beautiful, with long blond hair and crystal blue eyes. I wondered what had happened to her. A car accident? Cancer? Suicide?

“He always stood for what was right and good, We will forever cherish his memory.” This stone was old and the epitaph worn. WWI was above his name. Although it’d been nearly 50 years since he passed on, there were fresh flowers in the metal vase. I thought, for someone to have been here with fresh flowers, how old must they be to remember him? A daughter? Grandchild perhaps?

I continued to walk past the tombs... a baby, a mother, a son, a beloved sister to all… “Goodbye ole fishin’ buddy”, “Sleep, my little one, sleep”….I closed my eyes and tried to envision them, my minds eye seeing numerous iridescent people floating thru the cemetery surrounded by fields of daffodils and fluttering butterflies. Envisioning men of war, peacefully surrounded by all the colorful flowers, floating thru eternity as if they were meant to be there all along. My beautiful visions were crashed with the reality of pain that went along with the passing of my own dear grandmother. The pain that came with the passing of my mother in law. The tears that I watched my husband shed by her graveside. The regrets I saw portrayed by his dad, for all the things he wanted to say but didn’t, all the things he wanted to do but didn’t, and all the pain he felt he’d caused. Regrets. Regrets that I didn’t have time for my own dear grandmother in the few years before she died. I remembered her calling me for help with cooking one day, she sounded frail, and cried that she just couldn’t finish her dinner. I had things to do, and was so busy that day. I didn’t have time, but went anyway. I Rushed through helping her so I could attend to whatever task it was that I found more important, and jetted out the door. Only to realize a few short months later that she was gone. Poof.

Why are we always surprised by death? Even when we think we are prepared we still seem to experience this numbing shock. We had 5 weeks to absorb the idea of the death of my mother in law. But I fear that even had we had 5 years, we would have been just as shell shocked. We are created to live, and then we die. We know this. No one ever thinks they will live in this body forever. Yet it never fails when we lose a loved one, we always seem to feel short changed. We stand there wondering what happened? Why? How God could allow it? The bottom line is we will never know the answer to those questions. We are not in charge. There is not a huge bearded figure clothed in white up above the clouds saying “Ok, now its that ones turn…stroke, *poof*, that one, heart attack,*poof*, car crash, *poof*, house fire, *poof*”. We live our lives and sometimes things happen. Sometimes our bodies age and give out on us, and sometimes unfair things seem to happen to really good people. Such is life.

One day I will die. Its out of my control and it is guaranteed to happen. It is the one sure thing I can count on in life. And so I beg the question of myself. How will I be remembered? Fifty years after I die, will someone be leaving fresh flowers on my grave? Will my grandchildren grow up and say, “Remember when?” Or will my legacy casually fade over time. How can I leave my mark on this world. I’m not famous. Not an actor. A singer. Not a philosopher who’s ideas will be written across the pages of a world renowned book.

Why do I feel the need to be remembered anyway? Why do I feel the need to amount in the end to more than I amounted to in the beginning? Even the humblest of human beings want to be remembered for something. It is the drive within us, the drive to be noticed, loved, admired, respected. The thing that causes us to question our very existence here on planet earth.

Grasping death in its entirety, acknowledging that it is a part of life and ultimately inevitable for every person will bring you to a place of freedom. It will cause you to live each moment as if it were your last. To love. To give. To hope and dream. To stop what you are doing and give of your time and yourself. I have this little thing that I like to do. When I am asked to give of myself and find that I’m thinking I have better things to do at that moment, I ask myself a question. “If I don’t do what I intended to do, if my plans don’t come to pass….Will it really matter ten years from now? Will it matter in light of eternity?” If I can answer “no” to that question, then it’s a good way to measure whether or not it really matters in life at that moment. I’ve learned that even the most dutifully planned out details fall through. The most prepared people will experience failure and in the end, life happens. And at some point, even death happens.

Lately God has dealt heavily with me on this subject. Every person matters. Every life matters. Every homeless person, drunk person, drug addict, every orphan, every criminal, every child, mother, father, good or bad matter. Our gages in which we measure the purpose of a life, the importance of a life, is severely skewed. I believe it was Dr. Suess who said, “A person is a person, no matter how small.”

Every person you encounter will remember you for something. Will it be for the ugly way you treated them in the checkout line at walmart? Or for the hurtful words you dealt them when things didn’t go your way at work? Or for the way you talked about them when you thought no one was around to remember? How do you want your life to be remembered? Fifty years from now, will someone be leaving flowers on your grave?

Are you thirsty?

The hardest Job on Planet Earth, Raising Kids

I thought I was a great parent. After all, I’ve managed to bring three kids to the ages of 10, 6, and 4 without so much as even ONE stitch or major emergency room visit. When we go out to restaurants, older people are always commenting on how well behaved our children are. To which I beam a “Thank You” and pretend to happily receive the “Mom of the Year” award. To my defense, when they do act like total complete idiots, I have always had the ADHD to blame. I simply reply, “His medicine wears off around 4pm, I’m sorry.” or, “She hasn’t had a nap today, she’s cranky.”


This is all fine and good while in the public eye, but step into my car around 3pm when I pick them up from school and you will see a whole other side. My kids do not play video games or watch television programs that show one iota of aggression or murder or theft or vengeance. Yet, I have never seen three children ready to unleash the wrath of an army on one another as mine seem to feel the urge to. At 3pm, a mere crayon becomes a missile in the hands of my 6 year old. A shoe? A projectile weapon. A hairbrush? A cat of nine tails. Its like all day they sit in class plotting against one another. What, you ask, could possibly invoke such rage in a 10 year old? It can be as simple as his sister picking up one of his pokemon cards. Or, changing the channel when his favorite show comes on. As for the girls, they play wonderfully together. Especially when they are plotting to throw dirt balls at their brother before running as fast as they can towards the front porch. Or, pouring milk into his freshly poured glass of tea. Oh yes, they are precious little girls, with great imaginations, which they love to test out on their brother. Now, I’m not so naive as to assume that my children will live in fairytale land and play together in perfect harmony at all times. However, this rage that they seem to have for one another is something that I am simply unwilling to tolerate any longer. If as children they cannot learn to work together as a team or treat each other respectfully, how can we possibly assume they will grow up to treat others respectfully?

Aside from the “sibling rivalry” there is a more pressing issue. How they treat Donnie and I. Now, I’ve always prided myself on being that laid back, stress free, not so structured type of mom. That was all well and good when I was raising one child. It almost nearly worked with two. Throw a third into the mix and you have total chaos in your home. I thought I was stern enough. I mean, they know that when I yell really loud for their dad to do something about their behavior then that is their cue to stop the behavior. But what was I teaching them? I was teaching them that when Dad’s not around you can behave like raging lunatics until I grab the first thing with spanking power and swat you with it. They also knew that if they cried really theatrically then we would probably feel bad and cave in by giving them their way. For example: If we said 30 mins of TV before bed and at 30 mins they turned on the tears and said their favorite show was nearly over, then guess what? We caved. If I was on the phone and asked them to be quiet and one of them continued to ask for something…I caved and gave it to them just to shut them up. What was I teaching my children? You see, we are always teaching. As a parent, your entire existence is teaching something.

If I never honored my word with my children, what kind of adult would I be raising? An adult who never honored their word with the rest of the world. In essence, I’m raising a liar. It took me a while to own my poor actions. There have been times when I thought, “What is wrong with this child?” What I should have been wondering is, “What is wrong with my parenting?”

I will tell you what was wrong with my parenting.  The answer lies in one word.  L-A-Z-Y. Yep, I just said it. I called myself lazy. Little Miss full of energy, workout 3-5 days a week, walk/run over 10 miles per week, sew and run a website in between, make time to post on face book while cooking dinner, doing laundry, washing dishes and don’t forget shopping at the mall…..yet can’t take the time out of my day to follow through on a threat to spank, do a time out, or take away a privilege from her child if they fail to follow directions. Want to know the worst part? The worst thing is that I was actually lying to myself. I told myself that this was normal and three kids is just chaotic and that when they were teenagers they would magically obey me more because they would be more mature. PSHHHH, YEA RIGHT!

I overheard an older gentleman say to a young mom talking about her children misbehaving a few days ago, he said “When I was a child, I wouldn’t have even thought of behaving that way.” To which the young mother replied, “When you were a child, children were different.” To which, I replied, because I couldn’t help myself, “No, when he was a child, Parents were different.” This was spoken more for myself as a “aha” moment than it was for her, but those around us looked at me as if I’d just stabbed someone, lol. But isn’t this the truth? You guys, its not children who have changed. Its parents who have changed. We didn’t behave disrespectfully because we were not allowed to behave that way. Call me old fashioned, but you know my philosophy. “If it ain’t workin’. Change it.”
Starting yesterday, I did. I changed it. Gathered the kids together and explained to them that their behavior was unacceptable. I also apologized to them for not spanking them when I said I would, or not turning off the television at 8pm as I’d promised to, or allowing them to have their way because they bugged me to death or cried. I told them that by not keeping my word, I was teaching them not to keep theirs. I asked them if they wanted a liar for a mommy? To which they looked at me completely dumbfounded and replied, “NO.” My methods may be a bit extreme, but I think that raising children calls for extreme measures. Most of all, it calls for extreme sacrifice. Today was the hardest day in parenting that I think I’ve had. I had to remove privileges of TV for an entire evening after school as well as for tomorrow for one of them. It broke my heart to interrupt Cailins favorite program, Paula Dean, but I knew that I had to do it. Listening to her cry for over an hour, nearly broke my heart. However, I kept my cool and gently reminded her that she had broken a rule and chosen her consequence. I reminded her that if I allowed her to break the rules now, then she would grow up and think it was ok to break rules all the time. As we all know, a grown up breaking the rules will have far greater consequences than a child breaking them would. I want the best for my children. They will be adults far longer than they will be children and it is scary to think that if they can’t respect their own parents for a few short years then how will they possibly respect themselves or the rest of the world for life?


Are you thirsty?